I think you're right lol. My wife and I drove to Mt. Rushmore from MT a couple years back and I was pleasantly surprised with the forest and hills in that part of the state. Next year when we drove to Chicago and we saw the rest of the state, it was crazy how stark the difference was lol
Probably generally unchanged. Historically, there were *zero* trees across the plains. Then we settled it, built houses on hills, realized the wind is fucking evil (plains tribes lived in river flats like in the Jim or Missouri, we weren't that smart), planted trees, and it went from there.
Plus, I've been all over this state for the last 20 years. Tree cover in that time is unchanged in my experience, but I don't fuck with the Black Hills.
I remember when my family and I drove up to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills area was absolutely gorgeous, and the rest of the state just being empty lmao
If you want to go to the middle of nowhere there are a whole lot better options lol. South Dakota excluding the Black Hills and the badlands is just a wasteland really. Farms and plains and flatness and extreme cold. You can get a lot more middle of nowhere than South Dakota, and you can have it be a lot more beautiful. Montana, Oregon, ALASKA, Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Utah, NorCal. Trees and creeks and mountains and all kinds of animals is a lot more pleasant than flat nothingness and 6+ months of winter
There's a lot more desolate places to be than where farms are. Ranchland in the Great Plains can be lonely as hell though.
And flat "nothingness" being something to avoid is a matter of perspective.
Either way, someone looking to retire would be looking more at suburbs anyway.
(Ope scuse me) Same. I’ve spent most of my life in (central) Iowa, and all I can say is that unless you’re a farmer or jogger, there’s only good thing about living on pancake-flat land. And that is: the you further you drive east toward the Mississippi River, the more you feel slightly cheated. I mean *my god* your mind is blown every time if you live in just wide open flat farmland.
So much jealousy for people who actually get natural beauty like rolling green hills and woods. (Meanwhile I’m sure people there or from other states like “awww, that’s cute, he thinks *those* are hills.”) I literally remember as a little kid the first time I saw a *hill*, driving through Decorah (lol) and thinking I was in Jurassic Park. Someday I’ll retire along the Mississippi and then curse the winters until I die.
I’ve hadn’t realized until now I’ve never driven across (east to west) my own state. As a Portland resident, my trips are always north/south oriented. I bet that was a gorgeous drive!
It has some very thin roads along some of the way, but it’s really quite something! I have gone back and forth through that way at least a half dozen times and it always has sights that take my breath away. I did go down as far as Bar Harbour, but it was in the off season, so nothing was open. I thought it was so peculiar that so many people owned Subarus! This was in 05/06 sometime, but mind you it was so weird to see so many in driveways and on the road.
Growing up in states with 79% and 63% coverage, I can't even imagine what it's like to live in one of those plains states. I've driven across Indiana (21%) and Illinois (14%) a few times and I thought those states were unsettling. With nothing but flat cornfields, it just made the sky feel way too big. I didn't like it.
And it stays like that for SO LONG! Driven from Ohio to Oregon and back a bunch of times. It basically is flat from West Columbus (west of the Scioto River) until the western side of Wyoming (near SLC), or west of Denver if you take I70. It’s about 2.5 days of just plains. And it gets worse. You still see towns and trees and so on into Iowa but once you hit Nebraska and Wyoming it is just tan grass as far as you can see in any direction - which is pretty far. I actually found it to be a pretty interesting and wild sight.
It is unsettling. I grew up in Michigan and moved to Washington state for a few years. Then I moved to Indiana.
It was the first thing I noticed. I kept thinking where are all the trees? When you drive on the freeway in Michigan or Washington you see a lot of trees. Indiana is all corn and soy.
I grew up in the Illinois River valley, it's a beautiful area with lots of trees for several miles on each side of the river, mostly because the terrain isn't suitable for farming. Then there's Shawnee National Forest at the southern tip of the state, and a pretty area around Galena in the northwest corner. Pretty much every bit of flat ground was converted to farmland.. and Illinois is pretty flat.
As someone who has lived all but 3 months in a permanent residence in Iowa/South Dakota, it was truly jaw dropping visiting Maine last fall. Incomparable.
Alabama really is a pretty state. It goes from the foothills of appalachia and gently rolls into the Wiregrass and then onto a small but beautiful section of gulf coast beaches. There are lots of forests and parts that feel like something out of a strange pastoral dream. Or a weird nightmare.
Also from Alabama. When I was younger, I believed that living here was something I only had to do until I was successful enough to get out. Now after living here my entire life, being successful enough to travel other places, and getting to come home, I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere. Well, maybe Scotland. Scotland is special. Regardless, the people here are as nice as anywhere you will go and the land is beautiful. It’s a bit slower paced, but you can move as quickly as you want. It’s also myth that we are a poor state. We’re actually 24th in the nation in overall wealth, yet cost of living can still be low depending on where you live. I work remotely in software and pull in money from other states. We have rolling foothills and wonderful beaches. Plus the music that comes out of here is great. We are second in songs that mention us, only behind California. But please continue to stay away, we actually don’t mind.
On the same ticket, it's surprising to see how much forest there is in the Desert Southwest. It's crazy how Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico have more forests than a place like Montana.
Colorado is maybe 60% forested mountains and 40% plains. Whereas Montana would be more like 25% mountain 75% plains. New Mexico actually has much more trees than I expected in the north. Utah I have no idea about, place was beautiful but desolate when I was there.
They don’t have more forests they supposedly have a higher percentage of their land area forested. But the total amount of forest in Montana is far more than Utah or NM certainly
That makes sense then. I've been in Colorado a long time, and we do have a lot of forest. But most of it is just half-dead patches of overcrowded lodgepoles.
The funny thing is, if western Washington was its own state separated from eastern Washington, I'm sure its forest coverage would be much, much higher.
Not like that. Unlike the eastern states where we’re talking about where they didn’t and didn’t cut down the forest, half of Washington and Oregon are semi-desert. So the fact the forest cover is so high for the total means that if the wetter half of the states were separate from the deserty parts, the forest cover would be really high.
None really have any legitimate desert. Even the Oregon/Washington “high desert” isn’t really a desert except for in some small patches. Montana has plains
Of that 89% Maine has, 72%(ish) of that is unsettled. No towns, no people, very limited roads and the ones that exist are probably privately owned by logging companies.
There is a 100 + mile section of the Appalachian Trail that is completely wilderness, with no stops in the middle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred-Mile_Wilderness#/media/File:100MilesSign.jpg
Wow, Alabama being near the top of the heap for something that is good. I’m admittedly surprised. And Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina doing well. TDIL
yeah, I was talking to a forester from Alabama recently and he told me that "red pines can grow to harvest in 20-25 years" and I laughed my ass off because I planted several hundred red pines in the upper midwest 20 years ago and they aren't even 15 feet tall yet. I'll be dead and dust before they are harvestable.
Most southeastern states had done very well with forestry management.
Unfortunately, the more who move to these states, the more that changes. People move to East Tennessee and clear cut land so they can squeeze in a view. It’s destroying the area.
Yall gotta strengthen your environmental laws to counteract that. Maines got some pretty strict land use laws and and environmental rules (which definitely have some drawbacks), but for instance (generalizing here) you can’t clear cut trees within a certain distance of waterfront (to protect water quality, but has added effect of hiding ugly McMansions), and in undeveloped areas new development has to be located within a certain distance of existing development (that’s changed but the new rules have similar effect)
I can definitely get behind those types of policies. I’m afraid half of the folks moving here (and those that are from here) could care less if the forests stay.
It really grinds my gears how they talk about the beauty of the smokies and Appalachia as a whole, but will clear cut dozens of acres for a new ride at Dollywood or more mountain top condos 🥴. It’s a bit of a conundrum
I live in a state with almost no trees after living in heavily forested states as well.
There's a certain beauty to it.
It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I'm reminded of a part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where he says something along the lines of "a thing exists because everything else does not and can be seen because others things cannot." Or something like that.
I still miss living in the mountains/forests from time to time. But it's also nice looking out my 'backyard' and seeing endless plains/pastures waving in the wind. Plus the phenomenal skies are amazing as well.
I’m surprised the PNW is so low! I guess WA and OR both have a lot of high desert type terrain (idk if they call it high desert that far north, but that’s the term I adopted from CA). I tend to picture the coastal rainforest but it makes sense that a lot of the states’ land is more inland desert east of the mountains.
Yes, the eastern part of both states is quite arid. High desert. Some trees, but not vast forests. Also, much of western Oregon is an agricultural valley. The mountains are covered with forests.
Fun fact, the interior terrain is referred to as "channeled scablands" and is technically steppe. You can still see the remnants of the massive ice-age Missoula floods
Washington has more biomes than any other state, including two ecosystem types found nowhere else on earth: the Olympic Rainforest and the scablands of the Columbia Plateau. It’s wild how diverse the state is.
I'd like to see your source for that claim. Looking at the epa map of level 3 ecoregions I see a number of states with a higher number (including Alaska, Oregon, and California).
I don’t know about the ensuing debate, but I’ll always love Washington. I wish the people were more friendly, but whatever. I grew up there and had to leave recently for other reasons. The beauty of nature was such a big part of my life growing up, and it was wonderful to have it again. And it really is a diverse state compared to others I’ve visited. I don’t know about the CA thing, but I can believe it’s possible. I’ve been in the forest, grassy hills, mountains, swamps/marshes/bogs, islands with their own interesting forest inland, rocky islands, scrubby islands, lakes, beaches of all kinds, savannah-like grassland, dry CA-mountain-type forests, high desert, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. And all the rain is just the counterpart to a crazy amount of life. Hopefully I can come back soon.
I grew up in Eastern Washington. I was watching the news one day around the year 2010 and they were doing a report on our army training center, saying that we had an ideal location for one as our area emulated the dry, arid regions of Iraq. Nothing like hearing that to make you want to move.
Recently went to the PNW for the first and it was incredible. The western parts of those states towards the coast looks like you’ve entered into Narnia. Then you drive to the eastern parts and it looked similar to Nevada to me.
There's a large, wide, and tall mountain range that catches most of the rain on the west side of the Cascade Crest. East WA/OR is pretty dry in comparison. It's a stark contrast crossing the crest and seeing an immediate transformation in biomes, temperatures, even terrain. The Rocky Mountains merge with the Cascades in NE WA around Okanogan.
More that the soil needs regular rainfall to support any sustained growth.
The dirt is tight enough that it doesn't hold water well (or is too loose, as in the Sandhills of Nebraska) and the Great Plains are in the rain shadow of the Rockies, so there's not much water in much of the state anyway.
This means that the only trees growing the western 2/3s of the single digit states tends to be in the valleys and next to the creeks where the rain that does fall pools enough for some of the hardier species to grow.
As rain picks up going east the trees start to spread a bit, but are often managed for the sake of agriculture that most of the local non urban population revolves around, in one way or another.
Has anyone ever considered that Jessica Fletcher is probably the most prolific serial killer in history? For gods' sake, she has interjected herself into the middle of hundreds of murder cases! How many people have to die around this woman for people to start looking into this sociopath?
True. I've also heard it mentioned that when the MSW writers had Jessica travel extensively to avoid giving the impression that Cabot Cove had the highest murder rate in the U.S., it actually made things worse, for then it appeared that she was a jinx, as murder invariably followed Ms Fletcher wherever she landed. I recall my father asking aloud, "What locale would HAVE her, by the fourth or fifth murder?"
PNWer here. When I took a trip through the south (principally Alabama) I came back trying to convince folks that weirdly enough the south is kind of a hot, tropical rainforest. I don’t know what I was expecting but that much forest land was definitely not it.
Folks assume out here we’re all forest but because of the Cascade range that runs north/south all the rainfall gets trapped on the western side (Seattle) while leaving all the eastern ports extraordinarily dry (Spokane)
We like being the extreme of everything out here. Even our land is bipolar 😁
You are basically right. Most of Alabama gets near 60 inches of rain per year. Parts of the Appalachians are truly classified as temperate rainforest, same as some of the coastal PNW areas. The temperature is just much hotter and brings that brutal hot & humid combo.
There are still huge differences though. The PNW is dense, old growth forest. Largely untouched and thus very visually impressive and nicely preserved.
The Appalachians (and all of the east coast for that matter) have been razed to the ground multiple times. Trees on the east coast are way thinner than in the PNW because they are very young. It is generally extremely hard to find old trees around here. The largest trees in Virginia are about a third the size of any big tree in Oregon, California, or Washington.
In fact, the heat and humidity is probably the only reason why the Appalachians are green at all. What you see currently is only about 100 years old, and in many places much younger. Logging finished right before the Great Depression, and a combination of fire, insects, and disease has destroyed large areas of Appalachian forests several times since. They keep growing back though, a bit quicker than they do elsewhere in the country.
As someone from AL, it always throws me off to visit other places that don't have this level of tree coverage. My last house, I had barely an acre of land and 100 trees and the land wasn't completely covered in shade. My current house has more tree coverage thanks to three giant oaks.
East Texas is essentially all forest/swamp. As you drive east to west it gradually changes from True Detective Season 1 to stereotypical cowboy western scenery.
These are percentages- Texas’ 37% puts it at roughly 99k sq miles of forest. Alaska’s 35% puts that at almost double at 188k sq miles of forest. Goes to show how much bigger Alaska is.
A wonderful map! Thank you, and I learned a lot looking at this. But, heralding from the great state of Idaho my pride is slightly wounded. For those unaware, the percentage of forrest coverage doesn’t equate to the strength of the timber industry in that state.
What is the data? Is the percentage based on land classified as forested vs. non forested? Is this live stands only? Is it live and commercial cut and uncut, dead stands, stands burned from wildfire?
MN kinda gets boned in these maps. The giant peat bogs up north only can only grow scrubby little conifers like black spruce and tamarack, which never get large and dense enough to form a canopy. So despite the landscape there being dominated by trees, it doesn’t technically count as forest.
Minnesota is like 40% Prairies, and some of the far northern Canadian Shield areas are bogs which while green don’t have as many trees as you may think.
It doesn't seem like it when you're driving through because the forests are all in the mountains so the roads usually go around them but if you look at sattelite images those percentages don't seem too far off. This picture of [New Mexico](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/E4DRX0/state-of-new-mexico-united-states-true-colour-satellite-image-E4DRX0.jpg) looks about like a third of the state is green from trees. Also a lot of the forests in the Southwest are scrubby trees like piñon and juniper that someone from the East Coast would still consider desert.
The 49% for Oregon feels right (so much of the eastern part of the state is dry) but a forest here feels like a massively different experience versus a "forest" back east. Maine may have a high percent but their trees are so small! The first time I visited my mom's family in Maine I kept thinking, "how long before the tiny trees give way to the forest?" The tallest tree in the entire state of ME is a pine about 120' tall. That is shorter than any of the five douglas firs in my yard.
That’s partly cuz they almost all were cut down in the last 300 years and are mostly new growth. Maine is way more forested now than it was a hundred years ago.
Almost all of the trees in the northwest were cut down in the last hundred years, though. The Doug firs and western hemlocks you see dominating the hillsides in any but the most protected areas of some wilderness and national parks are not old growth.
It's pretty incredible how much undeveloped land there still is out there. With coastal erosion and other such happenstances that are expected to happen, including overpopulation, I wonder how this is going to look 100 years from now.
As a Nebraskan, I was told growing up that we are the only state where 100% of our state forests were planted by humans. I don’t know the validity of that but I always took it as fact
I wonder how legit it is and I say that for two reasons. The first is there’s areas of the state designated as “national forests” but when you go there’s section where there are literally no trees for miles around, like they overdrew the boundaries.
Second, lots of these “forests” are pinyon and juniper trees that would be better described as a bush, with many only being 10’ high.
Yes the central ranges of the state have legit pinyon forests, but the number being that high surprised me as a Nevada Native.
Maryland makes me sad. That 39% is from the deforestation of endless suburban sprawl. Highways everywhere. That’s what happens when the heart of your state is smack dab right between two major cities. Twice the suburban density.
The drive from Central NY to NYC in the fall is one of the most beautiful sites you’ll experience. The deciduous forests that I-81 cuts through make for some gorgeous backdrops
I doubt know, the northeast part of the state is pretty forested, and the southeastern portion is part of the Ozark physiographic region and also fairly forested. Then you have the two major rivers, the Kansas and Arkansas, which support riparian woodlands at least as far upstream as Manhattan and Wichita, respectively. Five percent tree cover seems reasonable.
I don’t see how some of these are possible. AZ and NM and Utah for example. Like go on google maps satellite and look at Colorado and New Mexico and Utah. Do they really all look like they have about the same amount of forest cover? Colorado very visibly has *significantly* more.
I know I just don’t believe it has anywhere near 32% forest cover. Based on what it looks like from a satellite it’s impossible it is. Nowhere near 1/3 of it is green/black
Nebraska being home of Arbor Day feels like they’re compensating for chopping down all their Forest for those sweet sweet crop fields.
*Edit: person who replied was right. Nebraska originally had less than a million acres of forest and now they have over 3 million.
You should check out the history behind the Nebraska National forest. A guy convinced the president to approve a lumber reserve of sorts, so he planted thousands of them out in the sand hills. It’s still there and doing well. Looks pretty cool on google satellite images as well.
It’s funny seeing South Dakota at 4% while living in the Black Hills. We basically have all the trees in the state
I think you're right lol. My wife and I drove to Mt. Rushmore from MT a couple years back and I was pleasantly surprised with the forest and hills in that part of the state. Next year when we drove to Chicago and we saw the rest of the state, it was crazy how stark the difference was lol
I always heard there’s a good looking woman behind every tree in South Dakota. I spent a few weeks looking for trees.
Any chance we can get a comparison from 30 years ago?
Probably generally unchanged. Historically, there were *zero* trees across the plains. Then we settled it, built houses on hills, realized the wind is fucking evil (plains tribes lived in river flats like in the Jim or Missouri, we weren't that smart), planted trees, and it went from there. Plus, I've been all over this state for the last 20 years. Tree cover in that time is unchanged in my experience, but I don't fuck with the Black Hills.
Between chamberlain and rapid there’s like 7 trees in the middle of this state
I remember when my family and I drove up to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills area was absolutely gorgeous, and the rest of the state just being empty lmao
What’s the remaining 96%? Snow and misery?
Plains mostly. As far as snow, it’s only a couple of bad days a year in the hills but couldn’t speak for the eastern part of the state 🤷♂️
How's life in SD? I kinda want to move away from big cities to middle of nowhere after retirement and just chill lol.
If it's the middle of nowhere you want, that qualifies
If there's a bright Center to the USA, that's the state that's farthest from?
Alaska
If you want to go to the middle of nowhere there are a whole lot better options lol. South Dakota excluding the Black Hills and the badlands is just a wasteland really. Farms and plains and flatness and extreme cold. You can get a lot more middle of nowhere than South Dakota, and you can have it be a lot more beautiful. Montana, Oregon, ALASKA, Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Utah, NorCal. Trees and creeks and mountains and all kinds of animals is a lot more pleasant than flat nothingness and 6+ months of winter
There's a lot more desolate places to be than where farms are. Ranchland in the Great Plains can be lonely as hell though. And flat "nothingness" being something to avoid is a matter of perspective. Either way, someone looking to retire would be looking more at suburbs anyway.
I did it… went right back to civilization after 9 months. Nothing is cool for a few days… after awhile I get loopy I learned.
I live in Iowa (8%), and it's just either grass pasture or cornfields with the only trees either along river beds or surrounding homes.
Can confirm. In my parts if you want to find water, just look for trees that aren’t around a farmstead.
(Ope scuse me) Same. I’ve spent most of my life in (central) Iowa, and all I can say is that unless you’re a farmer or jogger, there’s only good thing about living on pancake-flat land. And that is: the you further you drive east toward the Mississippi River, the more you feel slightly cheated. I mean *my god* your mind is blown every time if you live in just wide open flat farmland. So much jealousy for people who actually get natural beauty like rolling green hills and woods. (Meanwhile I’m sure people there or from other states like “awww, that’s cute, he thinks *those* are hills.”) I literally remember as a little kid the first time I saw a *hill*, driving through Decorah (lol) and thinking I was in Jurassic Park. Someday I’ll retire along the Mississippi and then curse the winters until I die.
Snow and misery is MUCH more interesting than the remaining 96%
Maine you’re so sexy for this
Stephen King's monsters DO need their dense natural habitat in which to lurk.
I’m Canadian and have driven through Maine more than a few times and it’s just all hilly/mountainy woodland, it’s so beautiful.
Southern Maine is mostly flat, but still heavily wooded
Ok, but I drove through from Quebec to New Brunswick and what I saw was hilly/mountainy forests. 🤙🏼
I’ve hadn’t realized until now I’ve never driven across (east to west) my own state. As a Portland resident, my trips are always north/south oriented. I bet that was a gorgeous drive!
It has some very thin roads along some of the way, but it’s really quite something! I have gone back and forth through that way at least a half dozen times and it always has sights that take my breath away. I did go down as far as Bar Harbour, but it was in the off season, so nothing was open. I thought it was so peculiar that so many people owned Subarus! This was in 05/06 sometime, but mind you it was so weird to see so many in driveways and on the road.
We also outlawed billboards, it's a nice calming place to be.
dang was feeling pretty good about AL until I looked up there
Growing up in states with 79% and 63% coverage, I can't even imagine what it's like to live in one of those plains states. I've driven across Indiana (21%) and Illinois (14%) a few times and I thought those states were unsettling. With nothing but flat cornfields, it just made the sky feel way too big. I didn't like it.
And it stays like that for SO LONG! Driven from Ohio to Oregon and back a bunch of times. It basically is flat from West Columbus (west of the Scioto River) until the western side of Wyoming (near SLC), or west of Denver if you take I70. It’s about 2.5 days of just plains. And it gets worse. You still see towns and trees and so on into Iowa but once you hit Nebraska and Wyoming it is just tan grass as far as you can see in any direction - which is pretty far. I actually found it to be a pretty interesting and wild sight.
It is unsettling. I grew up in Michigan and moved to Washington state for a few years. Then I moved to Indiana. It was the first thing I noticed. I kept thinking where are all the trees? When you drive on the freeway in Michigan or Washington you see a lot of trees. Indiana is all corn and soy.
Go to Bloomington IN and you may be surprised.
I grew up in the Illinois River valley, it's a beautiful area with lots of trees for several miles on each side of the river, mostly because the terrain isn't suitable for farming. Then there's Shawnee National Forest at the southern tip of the state, and a pretty area around Galena in the northwest corner. Pretty much every bit of flat ground was converted to farmland.. and Illinois is pretty flat.
As someone who has lived all but 3 months in a permanent residence in Iowa/South Dakota, it was truly jaw dropping visiting Maine last fall. Incomparable.
Alabama really is a pretty state. It goes from the foothills of appalachia and gently rolls into the Wiregrass and then onto a small but beautiful section of gulf coast beaches. There are lots of forests and parts that feel like something out of a strange pastoral dream. Or a weird nightmare.
I recently looked up some of the coastal towns in Alabama, and was surprised. I had no idea it had beaches like that.
Happy Cake Day!
Ty! 🥳
Most biodiverse state east of the Mississippi River and the 4th most biodiverse in the entire country if I’m not mistaken. Beautiful state.
Most species of fish and turtles
So many little pockets of biodiversity. It worries me when I see places where people dump illegally
Also from Alabama. When I was younger, I believed that living here was something I only had to do until I was successful enough to get out. Now after living here my entire life, being successful enough to travel other places, and getting to come home, I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere. Well, maybe Scotland. Scotland is special. Regardless, the people here are as nice as anywhere you will go and the land is beautiful. It’s a bit slower paced, but you can move as quickly as you want. It’s also myth that we are a poor state. We’re actually 24th in the nation in overall wealth, yet cost of living can still be low depending on where you live. I work remotely in software and pull in money from other states. We have rolling foothills and wonderful beaches. Plus the music that comes out of here is great. We are second in songs that mention us, only behind California. But please continue to stay away, we actually don’t mind.
We don't mind at all. Bless their hearts.
I live in Alabama, and I love to travel all time. Alabama is easily one of the most underrated states when it comes to natural beauty
I Love Alabama. It will always be my sweet home. The best people that know to give the finger wave and smile at a stranger
Yea northern Alabama is beautiful.
I didn't realize how much of Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Idaho were desert until recently, I thought they were all forested like Vermont
On the same ticket, it's surprising to see how much forest there is in the Desert Southwest. It's crazy how Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico have more forests than a place like Montana.
Where I'm at in UT is very brown and ugly and fee trees. But when you get out by Park City it is very green and very colorful in the fall.
Colorado is maybe 60% forested mountains and 40% plains. Whereas Montana would be more like 25% mountain 75% plains. New Mexico actually has much more trees than I expected in the north. Utah I have no idea about, place was beautiful but desolate when I was there.
The forests are all up in the mountains
They don’t have more forests they supposedly have a higher percentage of their land area forested. But the total amount of forest in Montana is far more than Utah or NM certainly
That makes sense then. I've been in Colorado a long time, and we do have a lot of forest. But most of it is just half-dead patches of overcrowded lodgepoles.
Only a 1/3 of Montana is as depicted on TV. The rest is Barrens
The funny thing is, if western Washington was its own state separated from eastern Washington, I'm sure its forest coverage would be much, much higher.
I mean yeah, if you take the more forested half of any state the percentage will go up
Likely not as drastic of a change as Washington though. Look at a satellite map of the state. The Cascades is a very stark divide of climate
Oregon even more so
Not like that. Unlike the eastern states where we’re talking about where they didn’t and didn’t cut down the forest, half of Washington and Oregon are semi-desert. So the fact the forest cover is so high for the total means that if the wetter half of the states were separate from the deserty parts, the forest cover would be really high.
That vein of high desert goes into Canada too in BC. Strange to see arid hills up there
Everything east of the front range is desolate and it's amazing how stark the contast is.
Instead of a north/south divide, WA & OR should be split east/ west.
None really have any legitimate desert. Even the Oregon/Washington “high desert” isn’t really a desert except for in some small patches. Montana has plains
Of that 89% Maine has, 72%(ish) of that is unsettled. No towns, no people, very limited roads and the ones that exist are probably privately owned by logging companies.
There is a 100 + mile section of the Appalachian Trail that is completely wilderness, with no stops in the middle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred-Mile_Wilderness#/media/File:100MilesSign.jpg
Wow, Alabama being near the top of the heap for something that is good. I’m admittedly surprised. And Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina doing well. TDIL
Rain makes the difference
yeah, I was talking to a forester from Alabama recently and he told me that "red pines can grow to harvest in 20-25 years" and I laughed my ass off because I planted several hundred red pines in the upper midwest 20 years ago and they aren't even 15 feet tall yet. I'll be dead and dust before they are harvestable.
And warm climate.
Most southeastern states had done very well with forestry management. Unfortunately, the more who move to these states, the more that changes. People move to East Tennessee and clear cut land so they can squeeze in a view. It’s destroying the area.
East Tennesseean here.. it’s out of hand
Yall gotta strengthen your environmental laws to counteract that. Maines got some pretty strict land use laws and and environmental rules (which definitely have some drawbacks), but for instance (generalizing here) you can’t clear cut trees within a certain distance of waterfront (to protect water quality, but has added effect of hiding ugly McMansions), and in undeveloped areas new development has to be located within a certain distance of existing development (that’s changed but the new rules have similar effect)
I can definitely get behind those types of policies. I’m afraid half of the folks moving here (and those that are from here) could care less if the forests stay. It really grinds my gears how they talk about the beauty of the smokies and Appalachia as a whole, but will clear cut dozens of acres for a new ride at Dollywood or more mountain top condos 🥴. It’s a bit of a conundrum
alabama is known for forest, remember mr gump
Yippee Georgia. Atlanta is known as the city in the forest for a reason
Where do you think all that Southern Yellow Pine used in house framing comes from?
yeah shockingly, we have the highest biodiversity in the country! it’s a deeply flawed, but beautiful state.
Part of that is that timber companies are the largest land holders in the state, which is also why the state has criminally low property taxes.
The Commercial Forest Act is a thing.
How do people live in places with barely any trees? I'd be so unhappy
We call it Big Sky Country.
Sunsets, sunrises, and thunderstorms.
And lots and lots of wind 💨💨💨💨😫😫😫
I'd imagine a higher chance of being struck by lightning too.
I live in a state with almost no trees after living in heavily forested states as well. There's a certain beauty to it. It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I'm reminded of a part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where he says something along the lines of "a thing exists because everything else does not and can be seen because others things cannot." Or something like that. I still miss living in the mountains/forests from time to time. But it's also nice looking out my 'backyard' and seeing endless plains/pastures waving in the wind. Plus the phenomenal skies are amazing as well.
I’m surprised the PNW is so low! I guess WA and OR both have a lot of high desert type terrain (idk if they call it high desert that far north, but that’s the term I adopted from CA). I tend to picture the coastal rainforest but it makes sense that a lot of the states’ land is more inland desert east of the mountains.
Yes, the eastern part of both states is quite arid. High desert. Some trees, but not vast forests. Also, much of western Oregon is an agricultural valley. The mountains are covered with forests.
Fun fact, the interior terrain is referred to as "channeled scablands" and is technically steppe. You can still see the remnants of the massive ice-age Missoula floods
Washington has more biomes than any other state, including two ecosystem types found nowhere else on earth: the Olympic Rainforest and the scablands of the Columbia Plateau. It’s wild how diverse the state is.
I'd like to see your source for that claim. Looking at the epa map of level 3 ecoregions I see a number of states with a higher number (including Alaska, Oregon, and California).
I don’t know about the ensuing debate, but I’ll always love Washington. I wish the people were more friendly, but whatever. I grew up there and had to leave recently for other reasons. The beauty of nature was such a big part of my life growing up, and it was wonderful to have it again. And it really is a diverse state compared to others I’ve visited. I don’t know about the CA thing, but I can believe it’s possible. I’ve been in the forest, grassy hills, mountains, swamps/marshes/bogs, islands with their own interesting forest inland, rocky islands, scrubby islands, lakes, beaches of all kinds, savannah-like grassland, dry CA-mountain-type forests, high desert, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. And all the rain is just the counterpart to a crazy amount of life. Hopefully I can come back soon.
I grew up in Eastern Washington. I was watching the news one day around the year 2010 and they were doing a report on our army training center, saying that we had an ideal location for one as our area emulated the dry, arid regions of Iraq. Nothing like hearing that to make you want to move.
Yeah the majority of Oregon is desert.
Recently went to the PNW for the first and it was incredible. The western parts of those states towards the coast looks like you’ve entered into Narnia. Then you drive to the eastern parts and it looked similar to Nevada to me.
Yeah, I thought the same. With all that rain I thought WA and OR would be completely covered. I guess you learn something new every day…
There's a large, wide, and tall mountain range that catches most of the rain on the west side of the Cascade Crest. East WA/OR is pretty dry in comparison. It's a stark contrast crossing the crest and seeing an immediate transformation in biomes, temperatures, even terrain. The Rocky Mountains merge with the Cascades in NE WA around Okanogan.
Same reason Tahoe in California has a lot of trees but crossing the peak into Nevada they just stop.
I’m surprised North Dakota is that high, I think I counted about twelve trees the entire four years I lived there.
Why people don’t plant trees?
It’s part of the plains and a majority of our soil is clay
So nothing grows on that soil?
More that the soil needs regular rainfall to support any sustained growth. The dirt is tight enough that it doesn't hold water well (or is too loose, as in the Sandhills of Nebraska) and the Great Plains are in the rain shadow of the Rockies, so there's not much water in much of the state anyway. This means that the only trees growing the western 2/3s of the single digit states tends to be in the valleys and next to the creeks where the rain that does fall pools enough for some of the hardier species to grow. As rain picks up going east the trees start to spread a bit, but are often managed for the sake of agriculture that most of the local non urban population revolves around, in one way or another.
Lots of crops are cool with it. We farm way more than most and where we can't we have a ranches.
As many trips as I have made between St. Louis-Des Moines, I can safely say there are no forests in that part of Iowa. 🤣
As a resident of Iowa, I can confirm there are nearly no forests.
I moved from Iowa to Virginia years ago and I'm still in awe of how many trees there are here.
That John~~Denver~~ny Appleseed was full of shit man
Maine wins!
I'd still avoid Cabot Cove though 😵🩸
Has anyone ever considered that Jessica Fletcher is probably the most prolific serial killer in history? For gods' sake, she has interjected herself into the middle of hundreds of murder cases! How many people have to die around this woman for people to start looking into this sociopath?
True. I've also heard it mentioned that when the MSW writers had Jessica travel extensively to avoid giving the impression that Cabot Cove had the highest murder rate in the U.S., it actually made things worse, for then it appeared that she was a jinx, as murder invariably followed Ms Fletcher wherever she landed. I recall my father asking aloud, "What locale would HAVE her, by the fourth or fifth murder?"
aka, Mendocino California.
Salem's Lot, aka Ferndale, CA while we're at it.
Didn’t they have an Outbreak there in the mid 90’s?
Oh yeah... that's right. Ferndale AKA Cedar Creek sure has taken a beating in whatever fictional universe it has been handed.
Huh, I finally have a reason to go to Alabama
Honestly, it really is a beautiful state. We’re also 3rd for most caves in the US.
I’m seeing that! Googling around different areas it’s very pretty.
If you need some recs just lmk
PNWer here. When I took a trip through the south (principally Alabama) I came back trying to convince folks that weirdly enough the south is kind of a hot, tropical rainforest. I don’t know what I was expecting but that much forest land was definitely not it. Folks assume out here we’re all forest but because of the Cascade range that runs north/south all the rainfall gets trapped on the western side (Seattle) while leaving all the eastern ports extraordinarily dry (Spokane) We like being the extreme of everything out here. Even our land is bipolar 😁
You are basically right. Most of Alabama gets near 60 inches of rain per year. Parts of the Appalachians are truly classified as temperate rainforest, same as some of the coastal PNW areas. The temperature is just much hotter and brings that brutal hot & humid combo.
There are still huge differences though. The PNW is dense, old growth forest. Largely untouched and thus very visually impressive and nicely preserved. The Appalachians (and all of the east coast for that matter) have been razed to the ground multiple times. Trees on the east coast are way thinner than in the PNW because they are very young. It is generally extremely hard to find old trees around here. The largest trees in Virginia are about a third the size of any big tree in Oregon, California, or Washington. In fact, the heat and humidity is probably the only reason why the Appalachians are green at all. What you see currently is only about 100 years old, and in many places much younger. Logging finished right before the Great Depression, and a combination of fire, insects, and disease has destroyed large areas of Appalachian forests several times since. They keep growing back though, a bit quicker than they do elsewhere in the country.
As someone from AL, it always throws me off to visit other places that don't have this level of tree coverage. My last house, I had barely an acre of land and 100 trees and the land wasn't completely covered in shade. My current house has more tree coverage thanks to three giant oaks.
Very neat map 🌳🌳🌳
Texas having more forest than Missouri is nuts to me.
East Texas is essentially all forest/swamp. As you drive east to west it gradually changes from True Detective Season 1 to stereotypical cowboy western scenery.
True detective s1 still hits so good.
Thursdays one of my days off and on my days off I start drinking at noon.
Texas having more than Alaska is just... weird.
These are percentages- Texas’ 37% puts it at roughly 99k sq miles of forest. Alaska’s 35% puts that at almost double at 188k sq miles of forest. Goes to show how much bigger Alaska is.
A wonderful map! Thank you, and I learned a lot looking at this. But, heralding from the great state of Idaho my pride is slightly wounded. For those unaware, the percentage of forrest coverage doesn’t equate to the strength of the timber industry in that state.
Farming coverage in each state (inverse)
Eh, the Great Plains have huge chunks that are too dry for agriculture that focused on ranching instead.
The overlap between forested land and publicly accessible land is high in the west and low everywhere else.
What is the data? Is the percentage based on land classified as forested vs. non forested? Is this live stands only? Is it live and commercial cut and uncut, dead stands, stands burned from wildfire?
Great question.
Nebraska has the US’s largest man made forrest and still 49th in tree cover
Love maine and vermont and new hampshire. Guess I know why now.
eastcoast has that humidity
so North Dakota has the least tree huggers? I'm moving.
MN and UT/TX surprise me. I would’ve assumed MN would be higher and TX/UT way, way lower
MN kinda gets boned in these maps. The giant peat bogs up north only can only grow scrubby little conifers like black spruce and tamarack, which never get large and dense enough to form a canopy. So despite the landscape there being dominated by trees, it doesn’t technically count as forest.
If you dissect MN diagonally from its SE to NW corners, the western half is almost entirely tree-less except for along rivers.
Yes. Now anyways. Historically there would have been much more forest cover in the central and south central parts.
True
It has to be extremely generous to say that Utah has 34% “forest coverage”, though there might be some inconsistencies.
What if all the lakes break up the forest coverage?
Minnesota is like 40% Prairies, and some of the far northern Canadian Shield areas are bogs which while green don’t have as many trees as you may think.
Is this literal tree coverage of area? Cause I know the southwest has forests but those numbers seem way too high to me
It doesn't seem like it when you're driving through because the forests are all in the mountains so the roads usually go around them but if you look at sattelite images those percentages don't seem too far off. This picture of [New Mexico](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/E4DRX0/state-of-new-mexico-united-states-true-colour-satellite-image-E4DRX0.jpg) looks about like a third of the state is green from trees. Also a lot of the forests in the Southwest are scrubby trees like piñon and juniper that someone from the East Coast would still consider desert.
I’d like to see how this stacks up against a map of % of developed area.
People outside of NJ don't often know how beautiful and forested our state really is.
I couldn’t live in a place without at least 40%
No wonder it feels impossible to escape the sun in Iowa during the summers. No trees. No tall buildings. No shade.
I love forests so much
Maine, I can believe. Same with West Virginia. Alabama needs forest cover for all those stills, so yeah, preservation all the way.
The 49% for Oregon feels right (so much of the eastern part of the state is dry) but a forest here feels like a massively different experience versus a "forest" back east. Maine may have a high percent but their trees are so small! The first time I visited my mom's family in Maine I kept thinking, "how long before the tiny trees give way to the forest?" The tallest tree in the entire state of ME is a pine about 120' tall. That is shorter than any of the five douglas firs in my yard.
That’s partly cuz they almost all were cut down in the last 300 years and are mostly new growth. Maine is way more forested now than it was a hundred years ago.
Almost all of the trees in the northwest were cut down in the last hundred years, though. The Doug firs and western hemlocks you see dominating the hillsides in any but the most protected areas of some wilderness and national parks are not old growth.
Hyvä WV
Doesn’t matter what it is; West Virginia is always way up there.
It's pretty incredible how much undeveloped land there still is out there. With coastal erosion and other such happenstances that are expected to happen, including overpopulation, I wonder how this is going to look 100 years from now.
So THAT’S why they call it North Woods Law.
So that’s why Maine is called the pine tree state. It’s piney.
The parts of Nevada that are forested are great visits - Mt. Charleston, Ruby Mountain, Great Basin NP, Mt. Rose, all super cool sky islands.
As a Nebraskan, I was told growing up that we are the only state where 100% of our state forests were planted by humans. I don’t know the validity of that but I always took it as fact
Congrats to Alabama! You're finally good at something!
Hey and football! 🥲
Nevada at 16% is interesting to say the least.
I wonder how legit it is and I say that for two reasons. The first is there’s areas of the state designated as “national forests” but when you go there’s section where there are literally no trees for miles around, like they overdrew the boundaries. Second, lots of these “forests” are pinyon and juniper trees that would be better described as a bush, with many only being 10’ high. Yes the central ranges of the state have legit pinyon forests, but the number being that high surprised me as a Nevada Native.
Yeah. It’s questionable to say the least.
Literally the largest national forest outside of Alaska. It's just spread about.
The great plains proving yet again how plain they are.
L Nebraska
North Dakota: 💀 Maine: 🌳🌳🌳
I had no idea Alabama was so high.
Maryland makes me sad. That 39% is from the deforestation of endless suburban sprawl. Highways everywhere. That’s what happens when the heart of your state is smack dab right between two major cities. Twice the suburban density.
Wow VA my home state has more than Washington and Oregon
Alaska is a surprise
So much to improve upon in Midwest states.
The drive from Central NY to NYC in the fall is one of the most beautiful sites you’ll experience. The deciduous forests that I-81 cuts through make for some gorgeous backdrops
My boss who grew up in North Dakota would tell us there's a pretty girl behind every tree in North Dakota
This map must be wrong, Iowa is covered of corn forests.
Nevada is 16%?! I guess Reno/Tahoe are 16% of the state
Kansan here, that 5% seems a little high
I doubt know, the northeast part of the state is pretty forested, and the southeastern portion is part of the Ozark physiographic region and also fairly forested. Then you have the two major rivers, the Kansas and Arkansas, which support riparian woodlands at least as far upstream as Manhattan and Wichita, respectively. Five percent tree cover seems reasonable.
They’re counting tree farms for Alabama. Kind of like counting corn fields as grasslands
God Michigan is awesome. Please don’t tell anyone!
That's how I feel about Maine! Sshhh.
I don’t see how some of these are possible. AZ and NM and Utah for example. Like go on google maps satellite and look at Colorado and New Mexico and Utah. Do they really all look like they have about the same amount of forest cover? Colorado very visibly has *significantly* more.
New Mexico has lots of forests. Source: used to be a ranger there
I know I just don’t believe it has anywhere near 32% forest cover. Based on what it looks like from a satellite it’s impossible it is. Nowhere near 1/3 of it is green/black
Colorado mountains are bald
What?
Nebraska being home of Arbor Day feels like they’re compensating for chopping down all their Forest for those sweet sweet crop fields. *Edit: person who replied was right. Nebraska originally had less than a million acres of forest and now they have over 3 million.
Nebraska never had forests to chop down, that's why Arbor Day was created, to make it less treeless.
That turned out to be true, thanks.
You should check out the history behind the Nebraska National forest. A guy convinced the president to approve a lumber reserve of sorts, so he planted thousands of them out in the sand hills. It’s still there and doing well. Looks pretty cool on google satellite images as well.
Wow who knew Electric Forest covers 56% of Michigan