Top 10 largest forests in the world:
The tranquil character of forests cannot be surpassed by any other manmade or materialistic thing. Forests are certainly a major factor for the healthy survival of humans. The Forests make the air pure and breathable for the human being. The trees of the forests attract the rains to pour on the mother Earth. On the other hand the forests also give us the food to eat. These forests are the natural habitat of the entire wildlife of the World including the birds.The existence of Humanity without the existence of the forests is next to impossible. These amazing forests have also become tourist spot of millions of nature lovers. Now here we enlist below the top 10 largest forests in the world:
10. Mindo Nambillo cloud forest ''South America''
The Mindo Nambillo cloud forest is a dense cloud forest which is located in South America. This cloud forest is much moister and cooler than any tropical rain forest. It is found in Ecuador and covers about 192 square kilometers or 74 square miles. This cloud forest is in the neighbourhood of the great Amazonian forest as well. With over 1,600 species of birds,frogs and other animals Mindo Nambillo cloud forest is extremely biologically diverse which may be because of the geographically of the diversity of the region as well. Politically, Mindo is a collection of rural parishes that make up the noroccidental administrative zone of Quito Canton, within Pichincha province in the Northern Sierra region of Ecuador. The Mindo valley is among the most heavily visited tourist locations in Ecuador. Nearly 200,000 tourists visit the area annually to enjoy activities such as rafting, tubing, trekking, mountain biking, canyoning, horseback riding, birdwatching and herping. Besides it's well developed tourism infrastructure, it offers several private reserves and lodges known for their montane forests, waterfalls and unique cloud forest biodiversity. Much of the land is privately protected, and an additional 86 square kilometers falls within the Mindo Nambillo Ecological reserve.
9. Kinabalu National Park ''Asia''
Kinabalu national park established as one of the national park of malaysia in 1964, is Malaysia's first World heritage site designed by UNESCO in December 2000 for it's outstanding universal values, and the role as one of the most important biological sites in the World with more than 4,500 species for flora and fauna, including 326 bird and around 100 mammal species, and over 110 land snail species. It is about 754 square kilometers or 291 square miles big which means it is larger than Singapore. It surrounds the mount Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, which is the World's youngest non-volcanic mountain in the World. It contains more than 4,500 species and is considered one of the most important biological sites in the World. Kinabalu park is widely popular among the tourist relative convenience. Kinabalu park is situated on the Crocker Range on the Western coast of the Sabah. It is located within the district of Ranau, within the west coast division. The park is not to be confused with the Crocker Range National park which is a separate park in the South. The park headquarters is 88 kilometers away from the city of Kota Kinabalu. There are sealed roads leading towards the park headquarters from other parks of Sabah. It is situated on the Southern boundary of Kinabalu park.
8. Daintree forest ''Australia''
The Daintree forest is a region located on the north east coast of Queensland, Australia, North of Mossman and Cairns. At around 1,200 square kilometers 460 square miles the daintree is the largest continues area of tropical rain forest on the Australian continent. Along the coastline North of the daintree River, tropical forest grows right down to the edge of the sea. In t 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, the daintree forest was announced as one of the Q150 icons of Queensland for it's role as a natural attraction. The rain forest is named after Richard daintree, an Australian Geologist and photographer. The tropical rain forest ecosystem of the daintree rain forest is one of the most complex on the earth. It's plant diversity and structural complexity is unrivalled on the Australian continent and represents the origins of it's more familiar ''Australian flora''. This forest is a product of the fortuitous of the continental drift that happened post the breakup of it's parents supercontinent when a portion drifted towards the pole to become Antarctica. This process disturbed the ocean currents and they ended up becoming quite chilly. On the other hand, the other remaining portions became very hotter. Thus, these rain forests of their parent continent sustained it's climate as well as the existence of the original trees. Today, it has become the habitat to more than 430 species of the birds.
7. Tropical rain forest of Xishuangbanna ''Asia''
This rain forest is located in Southern china is considered as the World's seventh largest forest. The Xishuangbanna tropical rain forest finds it's existence in the Yunnan province of China. This forest is also considered as one of the well sustained tropical rain forests in the world. It cover's an area up to 2,402 square kilometers. one interesting characteristic of this rain forest is that it has been divided into various subtypes. This rain forest comprises of eight different kinds of vegetation. Under these eight different kind of vegetation 58 are considered as extremely rare pattern of vegetation. These are more than 3,500 kinds of flora in this rain forest and all of them have been recorded scientifically. because of it's genetic gene bank feature, this forest is considered as one important forest of the World. Tropical rain forest are located around and near the Equator, therefore having what is called an equatorial climate characterized by three major climatic parameters; temperature, rainfall and dry season intensity.Other parameters that effect tropical rain forests are carbon dioxide concentrations, solar radiation and nitrogen availability. In general, climate pattern consist of warm temperatures and high annual rainfall. However, the abundance of rainfall changes throughout the year creating distinct moist and dry season.
6. Sundarbans ''Asia''
The Sundarbans is a vast forest in the coastal region of the bay of bengal which is one of the natural wonders of the World. The sundarbans of Asia is a natural area that comprises of southern Bangladesh as well as a little part of west Bengal, an Indian state. The sundarbans are considered as the sixth largest forest of the World. It is also considered as the largest single block of the tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the whole world. The forest of sundarbans covers an area of 10,000 square kilometers a majority of that is located in Bangladesh. This forest is considered as a World heritage site by UNESCO. The Bangladesh and Indian park of it is in fact an adjacent part of the uninterrupted landmark, but the list of UNESCO World heritage list has been listed differently. In the name of ''sundarbans'' and sundarban national park'' respectively. In India this forest of sundarbans is regarded and recognized as the Tiger reserve national park as well as a biosphere reserve where as in the region of Bangladesh it is considered as the protected forests. The sundarbans is considered as the habitat of the popular white Bengal Tiger. This whole region is covered by the mangrove forests. The sundarbans area is one of the most densely populated in the World, and the population is increasing. As a result half of this ecoregion's mangrove forests have been cut down to supply fuelwood and other natural resources. Despite the intense and large scale exploitation, this still is one of the largest contiguous areas of mangrove in the World.
5. Tongass ''North America''
The Tongass national forest in Southeast Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States at one million acres. Most of it's area is part of the temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, itself part of the larger pacific temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass which is managed by the United States forest service encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords and glaciers and peaks of the coast mountains. An international border with Canada runs along the crest of the boundary ranges of the coast mountains. The actual size of this forest is more than that of Sri Lanka. The Tongass forest is mostly comprised of the Western Sitka spruce, Red cedar and Western Hemlock. This forest has been classified into 19 registered areas of wilderness. This forest is also the house of one of the unique flora as well as endangered fauna of the World. It's is the United States of America's largest forest stretching up to a size of 68,062 square kilometers or 26278 square miles. The Tongass national forest is home to about 75,000 people who are independent on the land for their livelihoods. Three Alaska native nations live in Southeast Alaska, the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian. Thirty one communities are located within the forest the largest is Juneau, the state capital with a population of 31,000. The forest is named for the Tongass group of the Tlingit people, who inhabited the Southernmost areas of Southeast Alaska, near what is now the city of Ketchikan.
4. Valdivian Temperate rainforest ''South America''
The Valdivian Temperate rain forest is a ecoregion of the west coast of Southern South America, in Chile and extending into Argentina. It is part of the Neotropic ecozone. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia. The Valdivian Temperate rainforests are characterized by their dense understories of their bamboos, ferns and for being mostly dominated by evergreen angiosperm trees with some deciduous specimens, enough conifer trees are also common. This forest is also a part of Neotropicecozone. The conifer trees of this forest is also very common, the Valdivian temperate rain forest entertains four different kinds of forests ecosystems namely, the deciduous forests, two deciduous species of Southern beach and Roble. With over 248,100 square kilometers or 95,800 square miles the Valdivian Temperate rainforest is the forth largest forest in the World. To give you a sense of perception, that is even larger than the land mass of United Kingdom of great Britain and Northern Ireland. It covers a humongous area on the West coast of South America, extending mainly into to Chile but also covering parts of Argentina as well. Named after the city Valdivia, this temperate rain forest is full of under-bushes of ferns and bamboos. Both coniferous, as well as deciduous trees can be found in this rain forest even though the most abundant of all is the evergreen Angiosperm.
3. Congo rainforest ''Africa''
The congo rain rainforest is considered as the third largest forest of the World. This forest is the portion of the Congo Basin in the continent of Africa. The Congo rainforest in central Africa contains one of the largest rivers in the World, the Congo river. The tropical rainforest covers most of the eastern part of the Congo. This forest and it's river were the subject of the famous book called the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Hunting and poaching has endangered many of the animals there, but the jungle itself is not being as it is in Brazil. Congo rain forest is part of the Congo Basin in the African Continent which is about 2,023,428 square kilometers or 781,249 square miles, which is more than the size of Alaska or Saudi Arabia. Out of over 10,000 identified species of plants in the Congo rain forest, about twenty nine percent of them are uniquely indigenous. Close to 1,000 species of birds and more than 500 species of fishes have been recorded in here. About 500 variety of mammals has been registered. Congo rainforest is considered to be one of the most important ecological balancers. The Congo rain forest is also considered as the second largest tropical forest in the World. The basin of the Congo has 70% of Africa's plant cover. It makes up a large portion of Africa's biodiversity with over 600 tree species and 10,000 animal species.
2. The Amazon Forests ''South America''
The Amazon rainforest also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon jungle is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 square kilometers of which 5,500,000 square kilometers are covered by rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. States of departments in four nations contain '' Amazonas'' in their name. The Amazon represents over half of the planets remaining rainforest, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the World, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species. There are innumerable species of living species in this forest. The Amazon rainforest is the home to thousands of birds mammals, animals as well as insects. These forests absorb gigatons of the gas of carbon dioxide. It is said that one out of every ten species could be found in the Amazons. The name Amazon is said to arise from a war Farncisco de Orellana fought with the Tapuyas and other tribes. The woman of the tribe fought alongside the men, as was their custom. Orellana derived the name Amazonas from the Amazons of Greek mythology described by Herodotus and Diodorus.
1. Taiga ''Asia-Europe-North America''
Standing on the first position, The World's no.1 largest forest is ''Taiga''. Taiga also known as boreal forest or snow forest is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches. The Taiga is the World's largest biome apart from the ocean. In north America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States where it is known as the Northwoods or ''North woods''. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Norway, some of the Scottish highlands, some low lands/coastal areas of Iceland, much of Russia from Karelia in the West to the pacific ocean and areas of Northern Kazakhstan, Northern Mongolia and Northern Japan. However, the main tree species, the length of the growing season and summer temperatures vary, for example, the Taiga of North America mostly consists of spruces, pines and larches depending on the region, while the Eastern Siberian Taiga is a vast larch forest. Technically, it is not a jungle but a Biome. This is an ecological and biological system in the form of a jungle. In Russia alone, the land mass occupied by the Taiga as Russian boreal forest is close to 12,000,000 square kilometers or 4,633,225 square miles which is more than the size of China and India put together! And if we add the Northern American Taiga as well, then the size becomes even bigger. Taiga is a home of a number of identified as well as unidentified living species of the World. This is truly the largest forest covering the surface of the Earth.
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