Tallest forest

The world’s tallest forest is Rockefeller Forest within Humboldt Redwoods State Park in northern California, USA, whose upper canopy consists of coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens). The alluvial flats surrounding Bull Creek and adjacent Eel River occupy only 344 hectares (850 acres), yet contain 130 trees that are >107 m (>351 ft) tall, including 30 trees that stand taller than 110 m (360 ft 10.7 in). This equates to a density of one >107 m (>351 ft) tree for every 2.6 hectares (6.4 acres), or 0.37 trees per hectare.

The Rockefeller Forest is home to several coast redwoods that were previously recognized as the tallest living trees. The largest of these is the Stratosphere Giant, discovered by Chris Atkins (USA) in August 2000, and measuring 112.7 m (370 ft) as of July 2004. As of 2013, it had grown to 113.61 m (372 ft 8.8 in) and was listed as the third-tallest living tree on the planet.

Six years after discovering the Stratosphere Giant, Atkins (along with Michael Taylor) would go on to discover the current holder of the record: Hyperion, another coast redwood, located in Redwood National Park in California, USA. Hyperion stood 116.07 m (380 ft 9.7 in) tall when last measured in 2019.

Rockefeller Forest is named after American financier and philanthropist John D Rockefeller Jr, who donated $2 million to the Save the Redwoods League in the late 1920s, so that it could purchase this tract of land from the Pacific Lumber Company and put legislation in place to protect and preserve it.