China forest-area share · 2023
24.0%FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest-area share ↗
+7.3 percentage points since 1990
Energy & environment · forest resources
Forest cover and afforestation
This page separates two questions that are often mixed together: forest cover and forest area are stock measures, while annual afforestation is an activity flow. They should not be added together or used as substitutes for one another.
China forest area · 2023
225.6FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest area ↗
million hectares
Annual afforestation · 2025
3.56NBS · 2025 statistical communiqué ↗
million hectares · annual activity flow
Artificial afforestation · 2025
0.83NBS · 2025 statistical communiqué ↗
23.3% of total afforestation that year
The key stock–flow boundary
Afforestation is not the net increase in forest stock
Forest stock is also affected by removals, fires, natural expansion, land-use change and statistical revisions. So 3.56 million hectares of annual afforestation does not mean forest stock rose by exactly 3.56 million hectares. Artificial afforestation is also a subset of total afforestation, not an additional amount.
Stock ≠ flow
China long-run trend
Forest-area share, 1990–2023
China’s forest area as a share of land rose from 16.74% to 24.03% under the FAOSTAT-derived WDI indicator.
Source: FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest-area share ↗ · WDI AG.LND.FRST.ZS · underlying source FAOSTATchinainfigures.com
Forest stock
China forest area, 1990–2023
Forest area reached about 225.6 million hectares in 2023, a net increase of about 48.6 million hectares from 2000.
Source: FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest area ↗ · WDI AG.LND.FRST.K2 · converted from sq km to million hectareschinainfigures.com
International long-run comparison
Forest-area share across major forest economies, 1992–2023
The fixed cohort includes China, Russia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, India, Indonesia, Japan and World, using the common window in which both WDI forest indicators are complete.
Source: FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest-area share ↗ · Fixed nine-entity cohort · World is an aggregate benchmarkchinainfigures.com
Absolute forest area
Forest area across major forest economies, 2023
Area ranking answers how much forest exists in absolute terms, while forest-area share answers how much of a country’s land is forest. They are different questions.
Source: FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest area ↗ · World excluded from country rankingchinainfigures.com
Net stock change
Net change in forest area, 2000–2023
This compares net change in forest-area stock, not cumulative afforestation. China is positive, while Brazil and Indonesia are negative under the same WDI measure.
Source: FAOSTAT / World Bank WDI · forest area ↗ · change = 2023 forest area − 2000 forest areachinainfigures.com
Annual afforestation activity
China afforestation and artificial afforestation, 2023–2025
The light bar is total annual afforestation and the dark bar is the artificial-afforestation subset. They must not be added. In 2025 China completed 3.56 million hectares of afforestation, of which 0.83 million hectares were artificial afforestation.
Source: NBS · 2025 statistical communiqué ↗ · China Statistical Yearbook 2025 · afforestation definitions ↗ · NBS annual communiqués; artificial afforestation is a subset of total afforestationchinainfigures.com
2023 snapshot
Major forest economies: share and area
| Economy | Forest share | Forest area |
|---|---|---|
| Russian Federation | 49.8% | 815.3 million ha |
| Brazil | 59.0% | 493.0 million ha |
| Canada | 39.5% | 346.8 million ha |
| United States | 33.9% | 309.8 million ha |
| China | 24.0% | 225.6 million ha |
| Indonesia | 47.7% | 90.3 million ha |
| India | 24.5% | 73.0 million ha |
| Japan | 68.4% | 24.9 million ha |
China afforestation
Annual total and artificial afforestation
| Year | Total afforestation | Artificial afforestation | Artificial share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4.00 million ha | 1.33 million ha | 33.3% |
| 2024 | 4.45 million ha | 1.18 million ha | 26.5% |
| 2025 | 3.56 million ha | 0.83 million ha | 23.3% |
Forest-area share
High share does not mean largest area
Forest-area share depends on land size and land structure. Japan has a high share but far less absolute forest area than Russia, Brazil, Canada, China or the United States.
Forest area
Net change is not cumulative afforestation
Net forest-area change combines additions, losses, natural changes and statistical revisions. It should not be replaced by a simple sum of annual afforestation activity.
Artificial afforestation
It is part of total afforestation
Under the NBS definition, artificial afforestation is a component of total afforestation. The chart shows the subset relationship without adding the two values.
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Forest cover and afforestation indicator prepared
Prepared WDI/FAOSTAT forest-area share and absolute forest-area history for China and a fixed major-forest-economy comparison, plus NBS annual afforestation and artificial-afforestation activity for 2023–2025. Stock and activity-flow measures remain explicitly separated.
Related sources: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), distributed through World Bank WDI ↗ · Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), distributed through World Bank WDI ↗ · National Bureau of Statistics of China ↗ · National Bureau of Statistics of China ↗ · National Bureau of Statistics of China ↗ · National Bureau of Statistics of China ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
Data downloads and revision timeline added
Added page-level formal-data CSV files, chart-level CSV/PNG/SVG exports and a bilingual revision timeline to all indicator pages.
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed