The Asian part of Russia is not in Europe, and it may feature millions of km² of forest, so no, I don't think it should be omitted. On the other hand, New Guinea should be excluded from Indonesia.
Great quiz! Happened to see the FAO Forest statistics this morning and made almost a similar quiz of European nations, Russia included. Only then realized the similarity to your Asian quiz. You are very welcome to check out my quiz!
Don't have figures, but I know Korea as a whole was heavily logged during Japanese colonialism. Since then, North Korea is famous for being very over harvested and scoured for food, and as a result its mountains are mostly bare, unlike the South where they've replanted.
It's been some years since I studied this, but unless the situation has changed a great deal since (which I seriously doubt), the UN Food and and Agriculture Organization (FAO, the data source) passively conveys whatever junk data countries provide. In Asia, this was especially apparent for Burma / Myanmar, where in spite of widespread unrestrained logging, the forest area of the country was magically expanding every year. Remote sensing is beginning to allow some honesty, though still at a crude scale, and I doubt that FAO (or any other UN organizations) are utilizing it. (They don't want to upset member nations.)
It's interesting that a lot of densely populated countries are on this list. I suppose it's because everyone is packed into a few large cities and the rest is wilderness and small villages.
Bhutan and South Korea surprised me. The first one is so mountainous that I didn't expect that much forest and the second one is so densely populated that I thought most less urban area would be farmland.
I couln't find the source online for the new data, but I have to say the absence of Laos in the first countries by forest coverage is very strange, since in 2011 according to The World Factbook it was 71,6%.
Yeah, this was my thought too. Laos was one of the first countries I tried given how it's notable for being very forested. It definitely should be on here realistically.
There are huge built up areas that are similar in size to the total cropland. But forests fill up most the country.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6242873,142.6519269,16.42z
I find it hard to believe that anyone lives in a lake. (Keep in mind that Japan is not the same as Tokyo.)
9/10 is good enough I suppose.
I gotta admit, tho, I didn't see South Korea coming.