Map Enthusiasts

The 21% for Indiana is a little deceptive, because the northern half of the state is not very wooded at all, but the further south from Indianapolis you get, the more forested it gets. You can see it on this satellite map.

The glaciers pushed all the land in the south upward and made it very hilly, which is good tree country. As for the north, it's not because forests were clear cut. It's actually for a worse reason. The north used to be part of one of the world's biggest wetlands, the Grand Kankakee Marsh. It's been almost entirely drained for farmland.

https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/opinion/2016/01/02/andrea-neal-draining-of-kankakee-basin-destroyed-indiana-habita/46557981/

Texas is nothing but trees in the east, and no trees in the west.

But none of it are the original ecosystems: all the trees in the east were cut down and now it’s more or less a mono-culture of pines, with many invasive species; the plains were destroyed with a few holdouts; and I have no clue about in the west but I suspect that was messed up too.

But even 150 years ago a lot of forests in the east were still multistory with different layers of canopy. If left alone, someone said it would takes thousand of years for them to grow back to that.

Right now it’s just dense small pines cut down every few years, all over the state, and hard to walk though. Much easier to travel through earlier.

I live in the east where there was fifteen thousand years of history here, and a few thousand years of villages and larger settlements and several languages. But most those are forgotten because of the genocide which ended in my great great grandfather’s time.

But even earlier a previous ecosystem was destroyed by hunting out the large animals, which fundamentally changed the look of area. Trees just grow differently when there are large herbivores. There were more open areas in the forests too.

And in another hundred years most of these pine forests will be gone too, thanks to global warming. Probably too dry and hot that will blow off the top soil, causing rapid desertification . And the current people will move , most of them, and once again the land will forget its nature and people, towns will be forgotten.

i genuinely cannot imagine such a large piece of land being 2% forest, i would lose my mind travelling through that

Mississippi, Jesus.

The black belt is such a massively underrepresented area in media I guess I shouldn't be surprised I had no idea it was forested.

Maine represent! That's right only about a million people live here.

I’m surprised Nevada is that high

Did not expect Alabama to be on the same level as West Virginia and Vermont

Alabama: "for now. We'll show that nature what's what."

Alabama accent: grow forest, grow!

That’s… why it’s called the Great Plains.

Nebraska is fucking up their Arbor Day

Would be more informative if it was grouped by the dominant forest type. Different types have a different distribution and density

Pleasantly surprised my state (WV) is 3rd.

I thought Missouri had more forest than that