Facts About Our Forests

Forest Regions

There are four main kinds of forest regions in Ontario, each with unique characteristics and species. They range from the deciduous forest of Southern Ontario, through the mixed forest of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region in central and northwestern Ontario, to the conifer-dominated boreal forests of the North. 

• Hudson bay lowlands (subarctic barrens) - contains 19% of Ontario's forests
• boreal forest - the largest forest region in Ontario and Canada - contains 58% of Ontario's forests
• Great Lakes-St. Lawrence - contains 19% of Ontario's forests
• deciduous forest (Southern Ontario) - contains 3% of Ontario's forests;

Forest Facts:

• Ontario has approximately 85 billion trees
• 66.0% of Ontario is forest (71.1 million ha)
• 80.8% of Ontario’s forests are on Crown land (public forest lands) (57.5 million ha)
• 9.0% of Ontario’s forests are within existing and proposed Parks and Protected areas (6.4 million ha)
• 51.6% of the forest in the boreal region are managed by the Crown
• 44.2% of the forest in the boreal is unavailable for harvest
• Less than one-half of 1% of the forest in the boreal region is harvested annually
• The average age of Area of the Undertaking (AOU) forests have increased from 73 years old in 1996, to 79 in 2001 and 82 years old in 2006 and remained at 83 years old in 2011
• 55.8% of the AOU is softwood or coniferous forest types
• 25.5% of the AOU is hardwood or deciduous forest types
• 18.7% of the AOU is mixedwood forest types
• Ontario’s most common tree is the black spruce (37.3% of total provincial growing stock), followed by poplar (20.8%), and jack pine (11.7%)
• The most common provincial forest types are conifer upland and lowland, which are dominated by spruce, and make up 55.3% of the boreal forest

Total land and water area by land class in Ontario - 107.6 million hectares

Proportion of forest compared to total land area

Total provincial area % by land class
(Table 1)

Total provincial area % by land class
(Table 2)