Distribution of the World's Tropical Rainforests & Tropical Savannas

Tropical Rainforests

Tropical rainforests are common in several terrestrial ecozones, including parts of Afrotropic (equatorial Africa), Indomalaya (parts of the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia), the Neotropic (northern South America and Central America), Australasia (eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, northern and eastern Australia), and Oceania (the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean).  About half the world’s tropical rainforests are in South America (Brazil and Peru).  Rainforests now cover less than 6% of the Earth’s land surface, nevertheless, scientists estimate that they provide habitat for more than half the world’s terrestrial plant and animal species.

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Figure 2 Global distribution of tropical rainforests
(used with permission from http://photos.mongabay.com/en/ World_Map_of_Tropical_Rainforests.htm). Note the small areas occupied by rainforests in Australia..

Tropical Savannas

Savanna formations occur on all continents of the world with the largest areas found in the wet-dry tropical regions of Africa, South America and Australia.  Small areas occur in Asia, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea.  Savanna also occurs in India, although these systems tend to be derived from deciduous and sub-humid deciduous forest due to land use changes and population pressure.  Tropical savannas globally occupy an area of approximately 27.6 Mkm2 (Hutley and Setterfield 2005).

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Figure 3. Distribution of the World’s Tropical Savannas
Figure from (Hutley and Setterfield 2005)

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