Difference between woods and forest

Originally, ‘forest‘ meant a royal hunting ground, which is why they are usually larger than ‘woods‘; woods can be just a few trees, whereas a forest is usually much larger and denser, both in trees and vegetation.

Woods and Forests

A wood is an area covered in trees, larger than a grove or a copse. A forest is also an area covered in trees, but it is larger than a wood.

A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. The Food and Agriculture Organization defines a forest as land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ.

America’s smallest “national forest” has only 33 trees.

Adak National Forest consists of exactly 33 pine trees, huddled together and out of place in the vast treeless landscape. It is in fact unnatural, the remnant of an unsuccessful army experiment.

The Daintree Rainforest is estimated to be about 180 million years old making it the oldest forest in the world. In addition to being the oldest forest, the Daintree is also one of the largest continuous areas of rainforest in Australia – the Daintree Rainforest covers about 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometers).

There are no trees

There are four countries with no forest whatsoever, according to the World Bank’s definition: San Marino, Qatar, Greenland and Oman.

The Black Forest is a mountainous terrain at about 200 – 1,500 meters above sea level, the highest point being the Feldberg (the field mountain) at 1,493 m. The region is famous for its cuckoo clocks, watchmaking, skiing and tourism.

The Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest. The Amazon rainforest, which includes parts of nine countries and covers nearly 40% of South America, accounts for just over half the primary forests found across the tropics.

Total forest area by country

Russia is home to the largest area of forest – 815 million hectares.

Daintree Rainforest

Daintree Rainforest is considered one of the oldest, most stunning natural attractions in the world and also one of the most dangerous rainforests in the world. The forest, however, hosts several dangerous wild animals and plants that are harmful to humans.

The wild taiga forest in northern Russia – part of the largest forest on Earth – is one of them. Encircling the top of the globe through the far north of Eurasia and North America, the taiga or boreal forest, makes up almost a third of the world’s remaining forest cover.

According to the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015 and official Rosleskhoz data, Russia, also officially known as the Russian Federation (RF), has around 11.47 million km2 of forest land and other wooded land, which constitutes 49.8% of the total land area of Russia.

Russia has more than a fifth of the world’s forests, making it the largest forest country in the world. According to data for 2015, the total forest area has exceeded 885 million hectares, representing 45% of the total area of the country. The stock of wood in the area was 82 billion cubic meters.

This is Cheremkhovsky forest. Although it covers a huge sweep of terrain – 7900 sq km – it is but a dot in the sprawling 12 million sq km Russian boreal forest, or taiga, the world’s largest forested region. Nearly a quarter of the planet’s forests are here.