When National Arbor Day comes around, as it does this year on April 29, it reminds people of all the joy and wonder that a verdant tree can inspire. Trees are, in a sense, the ultimate breath of fresh air: Their shade cools down overheated cities, their fragrances cool down overheated minds and their ability to absorb carbon dioxide cools down an overheated planet. Trees are so beloved, in fact, that people will even send them love letters and fan mail.
If you too are the type to send love notes to a linden, then you'll want to take note of which states in the U.S. are most abundant in forests. The Northeast – with its gorgeous fall foliage – tends to dominate, but Southern and Appalachian states have plenty of green vistas to show off as well.
According to Department of Agriculture data analyzed by USAFacts,
the states with the highest percentage of land covered in forests in
2017 – the latest year information for all states was available – were
Maine (89%), New Hampshire (83%), West Virginia (79%), Vermont (76%) and
Alabama (71%). Go out to the prairie states, however, and there will be
nary a tree in sight. North Dakota has only 2% of its land covered in
forests, followed by Nebraska (3%), South Dakota (4%), Kansas (5%) and
Iowa (8%). Overall, there are 21 states that are at least half covered
by forests.
One hundred years ago, the greatest threat to trees in the U.S. was deforestation. That trend reversed itself starting in the 1980s, when the U.S. began to gain more trees than it cut down. From 1987 to 2017, the country was able to add 52,000 square miles of forest.
This reforestation is part of a global trend. According to Our World in Data, temperate regions of the world have seen a net increase in forest cover since 1990. Tropical regions, unfortunately, are still losing forests, although net loss is down from its peak in the 1980s.
At the same time, other threats have emerged, including invasive pests and wildfires. According to USAFacts, the number of acres of forest lost to wildfires every year in the U.S. has been increasing since 1983; in 2021 alone, wildfires burned an area the size of Massachusetts.
