States The Have Lost The Most Forest

The U.S. Forest Monitor has just released an in-depth study of what happened to America’s forests between 1990 and 2017. Among its conclusions was the amount of forest lost permanently, which we have broken out by state. Hawaii and Alaska were not included. In describing their large database, the authors said “nearly 10 million acres had been lost.” Based on our calculation, the actual figure is 9.8 million.

We first looked at acres lost relative to each state’s total forest size. We then looked at acres “lost to development,” meaning man-made structures such as office centers, residential real estate, public centers, and suburbs. Most of the remaining loss went to cropland and farming.

Ten states “had the highest percentages of forest converted”: Georgia, North Carolina, Delaware, Florida, South Carolina, New Jersey, Texas, Massachusetts, Arkansas, and Virginia. The table below shows the top 15.

Rank	State	% of 1990 forest lost	Acres lost	Share to development
1	Georgia	4.4%	1,182,000	47%
2	North Carolina	3.8%	800,000	47%
3	Delaware	3.6%	17,000	54%
4	Florida	3.3%	658,000	55%
5	South Carolina	3.2%	440,000	58%
6	New Jersey	3.0%	76,000	85%
7	Texas	3.0%	974,000	59%
8	Massachusetts	2.9%	99,000	86%
9	Arkansas	2.8%	577,000	28%
10	Virginia	2.7%	494,000	39%
11	Maryland	2.5%	80,000	74%
12	Rhode Island	2.5%	10,000	81%
13	Tennessee	2.5%	398,000	24%
14	Missouri	2.4%	454,000	17%
15	Alabama	2.2%	555,000	21%

The study also forecast where the most forest could be lost in the future, which the authors called “hotspots,” and identified areas where loss is likely to be “development-driven.” The authors also noted the places in the U.S. where cropland had been the largest contributor to forest loss.

The economy affected the pace of forest destruction. According to the study, “Both cropland- and development-driven forest loss increased quickly from the 1990s. Cropland-driven loss continued to grow, while development-driven loss dropped sharply around 2008, coinciding with the Great Recession.”

The database we used is available to the public. It does not measure some losses to natural disasters, including wildfires. Our analysis uses data from the U.S. Forest Monitor, released in October 2026 by the Forest Carbon Data Partnership. The partnership is led by the Open Space Institute and includes The Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, the Land Trust Alliance, and American Forests. Researchers at Clark University did the mapping.

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