Most Forested Countries in the World
Small tropical nations often have the highest percentage of forest coverage. Suriname, Gabon, and Micronesia each have over 90% of their land area covered by forest, making them some of the greenest places on Earth.
Brazil has the largest total forest area in the world but does not rank at the top by percentage. The Amazon rainforest covers about 60% of Brazil's territory, yet large swathes of the country are savanna, wetland, and agricultural land.
Forest coverage is critical for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation. This ranking is based on the percentage of total land area covered by forest, sourced from the World Bank and the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment.
The ranking
| 1 |  | Suriname | 94.5% |
| 2 |  | Micronesia | 92.1% |
| 3 |  | Gabon | 91.2% |
| 4 |  | Palau | 90.4% |
| 5 |  | Solomon Islands | 90.1% |
| 6 |  | Guyana | 87.1% |
| 7 |  | Equatorial Guinea | 86.7% |
| 8 |  | Papua New Guinea | 79.0% |
| 9 |  | Liberia | 78.5% |
| 10 |  | Finland | 73.7% |
| 11 |  | Seychelles | 73.3% |
| 12 |  | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 73.2% |
| 13 |  | Brunei | 72.1% |
| 14 |  | Laos | 71.6% |
| 15 |  | Bhutan | 71.6% |
| 16 |  | Guinea-Bissau | 69.8% |
| 17 |  | Sweden | 68.7% |
| 18 |  | Japan | 68.4% |
| 19 |  | South Korea | 64.2% |
| 20 |  | Republic of the Congo | 64.2% |
| 21 |  | Dominica | 63.8% |
| 22 |  | Fiji | 63.1% |
| 23 |  | Timor-Leste | 61.8% |
| 24 |  | Montenegro | 61.5% |
| 25 |  | Slovenia | 61.3% |
| 26 |  | Costa Rica | 60.1% |
| 27 |  | Zambia | 59.8% |
| 28 |  | Brazil | 59.1% |
| 29 |  | Malaysia | 57.9% |
| 30 |  | Samoa | 57.8% |
| 31 |  | Estonia | 57.1% |
| 32 |  | Panama | 56.5% |
| 33 |  | Honduras | 56.5% |
| 34 |  | Peru | 56.2% |
| 35 |  | Jamaica | 55.8% |
| 36 |  | Belize | 55.0% |
| 37 |  | Latvia | 54.9% |
| 38 |  | DR Congo | 54.7% |
| 39 |  | Colombia | 52.9% |
| 40 |  | São Tomé and Príncipe | 52.8% |
| 41 |  | Angola | 52.5% |
| 42 |  | Venezuela | 52.3% |
| 43 |  | Marshall Islands | 52.2% |
| 44 |  | Grenada | 52.1% |
| 45 |  | Bahamas | 50.9% |
| 46 |  | Tanzania | 50.6% |
| 47 |  | Ecuador | 49.8% |
| 48 |  | Russia | 49.8% |
| 49 |  | North Korea | 49.7% |
| 50 |  | Indonesia | 48.0% |
Questions
Which country leads this forest cover ranking?
Suriname leads the available sovereign-country records, with 94.5%. The source year is 2021. This is a comparison of countries with data, rather than a claim about missing countries.
How is the ranking calculated?
Recorded values from World Bank, 2021, are sorted from highest to lowest. Territories are excluded, and missing values are not treated as zero. 50 of 194 countries with data are shown.
