A sourced look at the wet forests of the tropics — and the cooler, temperate ones — with our own drawings and a public fact-check log. Where good sources disagree, we keep both in view.
A rainforest, in Britannica wording, is a luxuriant forest, generally composed of tall, broad-leaved trees and usually found in wet tropical uplands and lowlands around the Equator. Britannica Lying either side of the equator, tropical rainforest climates are characterised by high temperatures and year-round rainfall. Met Office There are two types of rainforests, tropical and temperate. Tropical rainforests are found closer to the equator where it is warm. Temperate rainforests are found near the cooler coastal areas further north or south of the equator. NASA
Rainfall is over 60 mm of rain in every month, giving rise to thick rainforest and some of the highest densities of biodiversity seen on land. Met Office Tropical rainforests are found primarily in South and Central America, West and Central Africa, Indonesia, parts of Southeast Asia, and tropical Australia. Britannica
Tropical rainforests grow mainly in the Amazon basin, West and Central Africa, and the Malesian region across Southeast Asia and tropical Australia. Temperate rainforests are a different, cooler kind. Not to scale.Drawing: our own, simplified and not to scale
Fact-checked PDFs in A4 and US Letter, sold as instant downloads from the ReallyByte store: our own drawings, a guide, and worksheets with answers. Prices in US dollars.
The Rainforests Reference Guide
A fact-checked guide to what a rainforest is, the climate that makes one, the layers of the forest, and what good sources say — and still disagree — about rain, height and life in the Amazon.