The answer is just over three trillion (3,000,000,000,000), this according to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature.
The number of trees is eight times more than was previously thought. And the figure may seem impressive. But the researchers behind the study point out that 15 billion trees are cut by humans every year, and the total amount is nearly half of what was at the beginning of human civilization.
The study is a broad collaboration between researchers and institutions across the world, they have used a combination of satellite imagery, forest inventories, and data calculations, as well as over 400,000 estimates of tree density in different areas of the planet. This method made them able to quite accurately estimate the number of trees on each square kilometer on Earth.
Their resulting number of trees was 3,04 trillion, about 422 trees per person. With the largest number found in Russia (641 million trees), then Canada (318), Brazil (302) and the United States of America (228). Perhaps not that surprising considering these all of these are among the largest countries on Earth.
Looking at different regions of the planet, it is immediately clear that the tropics are at the top of the list, though. With approximately 43 percent of all the world’s trees. The temperate zone and the northern taiga forest (boreal forest) region holds 22 percent and 24 percent respectively.
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Mapping tree density at a global scale
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