China vs India: Annual forest expansion

China
1.89 million hectares per year
in 2020
India
674,000 hectares per year
in 2020
China rank
1st
India rank
4th

Annual forest expansion over time

  • China
  • India
500.0k1.0M1.5M2.0M2.5M199020052020

How they compare

China currently reports 1.89 million hectares per year against 674,000 hectares per year in India, a difference of 1.21 million hectares per year.

That makes China's figure about 2.8 times India's.

Across all 5 years both countries report, China has been ahead every year.

China ranks 1st and India ranks 4th of 110 countries.

Individual pages

About this data

Indicator
Annual forest expansion
Unit
hectares per year
Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Licence
CC BY 4.0 (Our World in Data)
Coverage
110 places, 550 data points, 1990–2020
Last refreshed

Forest expansion is the sum of afforestation (the establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding) and natural forest expansion (expansion of forests through natural succession on land that, until then, was under another land use).