Temperate Rainforest - Global Distribution

Global Distribution

Temperate forests cover a large part of the earth, but temperate rainforests only occur in a few regions around the world. Most of these occur in Oceanic-Moist Climates: the Pacific temperate rain forests in Western North America (Southeastern Alaska to Central California), the Valdivian and Magellanic temperate rainforests of southwestern South America (Southern Chile and adjacent Argentina), pockets of rain forest in northwest Europe (southern Norway to northern Spain and Portugal), temperate rainforests of southeastern Australia (Tasmania and Victoria) and the New Zealand temperate rainforests (South Island's west coast).

Others occur in Subtropical-Moist Climates: South Africa's Knysna-Amatole coastal forests, the Colchian rain forests of the eastern Black Sea region (Turkey and Georgia), the Caspian temperate rainforests of Iran and Azerbaijan, the mountain temperate rainforests along eastern Taiwan's Pacific Coast, southwest Japan's Taiheiyo forests, Australia's coastal New South Wales and New Zealand's North Island.

Some areas, however, such as the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, northern Idaho and northwestern Montana, Rocky Mountain Trench in BC and Montana, and the Russian Far East (Ussuri, Manchuria, Sakhalin) in Asia have more of continental climate but get enough precipitation in both rain and snow to harbor significant pockets of temperate rainforest.

Scattered small pockets of temperate rainforest also exist along the Appalachian Mountains from northern Georgia to New England. The mountainous coniferous forests of the Changbai Mountains bordering China and North Korea are also a good example, containing some of the richest high-elevation coniferous evergreen forests in East Asia.