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Countries with the Highest Percentage of Forest

Can you name the countries where the highest percentage of land is forested?
Forest area according to the FAO, 2020
Total area according to Wikipedia
Many of these are tiny countries with a population < 1 million
Quiz by TenThousand
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Last updated: November 9, 2021
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First submittedJuly 31, 2014
Times taken31,208
Average score57.1%
Rating4.51
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%
Continent
Country
92.8%
South America
Suriname
91.7%
Oceania
F. S. Micronesia
90.2%
Oceania
Palau
87.9%
Africa
Gabon
87.3%
Oceania
Solomon Islands
87.3%
Africa
Equatorial Guinea
85.7%
South America
Guyana
77.5%
Oceania
Papua New Guinea
74.6%
Africa
Seychelles
73.3%
North America
St. Vincent and
the Grenadines
71.0%
Asia
Bhutan
%
Continent
Country
70.1%
Asia
Laos
68.4%
Africa
Liberia
66.2%
Europe
Finland
66.0%
Asia
Japan
65.9%
Asia
Brunei
64.2%
Africa
Rep. of the Congo
63.8%
North America
Dominica
62.7%
Asia
South Korea
62.4%
Oceania
Fiji
62.1%
Europe
Sweden
+20
Level 82
Oct 23, 2014
This is much harder than the countries with the most forest quiz.. and.. having been to Korea it's almost impossible to believe that either North or South Korea has more forest coverage than places like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cameroon, etc- places that you think of as being totally covered by jungle. The Korean peninsula was completely denuded by the Japanese in WW2. Barely a matchstick or toothpick left behind. and taking a train across the entire country I don't recall seeing a single forest the whole time.. just a few clumps of trees here and there.

Slovenia, Japan, and Sweden are also pretty surprising.

+30
Level 59
Mar 18, 2018
Haven't really been to Sweden then, eh?
+1
Level 82
Jul 26, 2020
Not to any heavily forested areas. Stockholm, Malmo, Gothenberg, and areas inbetween along the coast...
+1
Level 83
Nov 9, 2021
I visited Gothenburg with my family once and we stayed in a massive forest just outside the city
+8
Level 66
Jan 2, 2019
what skukka said. That was one of the few that wasnt just a random guess for me. It is the greenest country i have ever driven through. I can allways remember thinking wow it is green here !! (going denmark-sweden-norway you couldnt help but notice it ) as soon as I went over the border you could tell you were in a different country.
+9
Level 70
Jun 30, 2020
Same holds for Slovenia. I've cycled across the country and it is astonishing how green it is since I live in the nearby region in Italy which is anywhere close to that.
+1
Level 82
Jul 26, 2020
::shrug:: I wasn't astonished..
+1
Level 40
Apr 12, 2021
but sk isnt surprising? huh
+5
Level 82
Nov 9, 2021
Japan doesn't surprise me. Despite it's huge population and small area, that population is heavily concentrated in proximity to the Pacific coast. Much of the interior of Honshu and the Sea of Japan coast is much less densely populated and it doesn't take long from any major Japanese city to find yourself in thick woodland. Kyoto's basically entirely surrounded by it. I suspect it's a result of having such a mountainous interior and the Pacific coastal plains being so fertile as a result of the volcanic soil and run-off from those mountains.
+1
Level 71
Nov 18, 2021
Slovenia and Sweden are not surprising considering how pristine their mountains are.
+3
Level 49
Jan 9, 2022
yeah probably but in korea rather than the cities it's just like trees on mountains
+6
Level 73
Jan 9, 2022
As a Korean, I can tell you that there are quite a lot of forests in the countryside. We used to have severe deforestation but we've gone through a massive reforestation scheme in the 1970s and 80s - and as a legacy of this we even have a "tree-planting day" every year (April 5th) which used to be a holiday
+3
Level 82
Jan 9, 2022
Lived in South Korea for three years. Once you're outside of the Seoul-Incheon metropolitan area most of the country is forested hills. The other cities are much smaller and tend to be very dense, so there's a lot of space for trees.

Don't know how you managed to take a train across the country and not notice this. Maybe you fell asleep?

+1
Level 82
Jan 12, 2022
I don't think so but maybe it was all a vivid dream.
+6
Level 51
Oct 23, 2014
I can't believe Japan and South Korea are in the list. For those who have been there, we know that it feels like there isn't any kind of forest gap between Tokyo and Hiroshima. I would assume the other islands are more forested. Where is the source? Thanks.
+10
Level 74
Jan 9, 2015
Having lived for years in Japan, I have to say I don't agree with your feelings icazares. For example, Mt. Takao is only 30 minutes from Tokyo by train, and it is a UN protected biosphere with beautiful hiking and wilderness. Outside of the metro areas, there many gorgeous forests in addition to agricultural areas. But then if you go to other islands like Hokkaido of course it gets much more sparsely populated.
+9
Level 74
Jun 29, 2020
I agree. Japan has a typical population concentration, where all activities are concentrated in relatively small strips. From a train you'd see all the built-up areas, but the forest and other nature are usually very close. You just don't notice it as much moving from city to city.
+3
Level 47
Oct 9, 2020
About 70% of Japan is unhabitable mountainous terrain where most of the forests stay untouched. If you travel around the country by train, you would most likely go straight through these mountains via tunnels or pass by urban areas/small towns surrounding the train stations, which is why you'd likely not notice it
+7
Level ∞
Nov 9, 2021
Apparently, hundreds of years ago, Japan was experiencing a deforestation crisis and took steps to correct it as soon as 1670 A.D. The large amount of land that is forested is the result of conscious decisions going back hundreds of years.
+1
Level 58
Jan 11, 2022
This surprised me too.

If you look on a map, south korea looks to be densely covered with cities, one might think that a big part of the space between them would be agricultural areas.

Thinking of japan, I mostly remembered those vast urban areas around Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya... and that much of the country is mountainous.

Maybe that's where I made the mistake to think about the japanese mountains like of the alps or even higher mountain ranges where there are no trees over the tree-line...

+1
Level 74
Jan 9, 2015
Great quiz Jerry928! Very surprising and I learned a lot.
+4
Level 63
Jul 20, 2017
wow. i got absolutely slaughtered on this quiz. 4/20. way harder than i thought it would be. of course most of the answers are tiny little countries, so...
+1
Level 84
Jun 28, 2020
I know they're technically not small island countries due to land borders, but I feel that Brunei and Montenegro should also be marked red because of their tiny populations.
+3
Level 76
Jun 29, 2020
Shouldn't Brunei be in red, since it is technically a small island country with less than 1 million people?
+3
Level 60
Jul 26, 2020
Brunei is on an Island but is not an island
+1
Level 61
May 5, 2023
so its an island country still.
+8
Level 69
Jul 12, 2020
This very quickly turned into 'type every country and see what works'... but an interesting quiz nonetheless
+1
Level 49
Jul 26, 2020
Love this quiz! I was surprised to see Japan and South Korea on the list
+1
Level 20
Jul 26, 2020
Hey guys I just made my first quiz “guess the ethnicity #1” I just really want people to see it and hopefully it will be nominated! Go ahead and check it out!
+1
Level 79
Jul 26, 2020
When 26/27 is only 4/5 points :(
+4
Level 71
Jul 26, 2020
This is definitely a very oddball group of countries... basically covers every continent and has countries that have almost no similarities. On another note, it's nice to see that Brazil is on here despite all their deforestation. However, given that this report was from 3 years ago, before the rate of the burning of the Amazon accelerated, it wouldn't surprise me if it was off the list now.
+2
Level 45
Jul 26, 2020
Only 20% of the Amazon was deforested since the 50s, and even with the current increases, it currently ammounts to MUCH less than 1% deforested every year. So no, Brazil will remain on the list for the foreseeable future
+9
Level 82
Nov 9, 2021
This aged well.
+1
Level 79
Nov 12, 2023
At this point, the Amazon led by Jeff Bezos is bigger than the rainforest.
+1
Level 79
Jul 28, 2020
I typed almost every country in Europe except Slovenia, and every single country in the America except Belize (forget them)!
+1
Level 48
May 26, 2021
very hard quiz
+2
Level 83
Nov 9, 2021
If not for the rich oil fields off the coast, I think Brunei wouldn’t have been on this list since oil means they have no need to destroy their rainforests for planting cash crops. Other parts of Borneo in Indonesia and Malaysia on the other hand, have undergone substantial deforestation for oil palm.
+1
Level 37
Jan 9, 2022
Finland actually has 75% forest coverage.
+2
Level 28
Jan 9, 2022
Why dont have brazil or Indonesia?

It have so many forest ok

+3
Level 59
Jan 9, 2022
percentage
+2
Level 75
Jan 9, 2022
deforestation
+1
Level 67
Jan 10, 2022
Wow, didn't know about Japan and South Korea, I was surprised when I got them
+1
Level 64
Jan 11, 2022
We need to distinguish between "countries" and tiny "city states" like Monaco and San Marino, and "island nations" like Tonga and Barbados. This is true for many other quizzes.
+1
Level 68
Nov 29, 2022
no
+2
Level 28
Jan 9, 2023
You need to add Benin in this quiz...c'mon guys lets plant tons of trees in my wonderful country... we'll be the next Brazil love y'all
+1
Level 68
Feb 23, 2023
No Indonesia is WILD
+1
Level 35
Aug 6, 2023
south africa aint a continent
+1
Level 55
Aug 12, 2023
People surprised by Sweden. But if you leave my city in any direction its NOTHING but forest for 1-2 hours. And I live in the south which is where 90% of the population lives too