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Temperate rainforests are rainforests in temperate areas that receive a high amount of rainfall. These rainforests tend to be rather cold and very mossy with plenty of ferns. Many of them occur in Oceanic regions, including East Coast Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, southern Chile and Patagonia, the Pacific Northwest (including British Columbia), the Black Sea Coast, the Appalachians (both in Canada and the US), western Norway, the British Isles and northern Iberia.

Understand

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Map of temperate rainforests

For a place to be considered a rainforest, it needs to have a year-round humid climate and particularly high levels of rainfall. In the tropics, more than 2000 mm of rain per year is necessary (in the lowlands) for ever-moist rainforests to thrive, while in cooler temperate latitudes, due to much lower evaporation, 1000 mm is sufficient (which falls largely as snow towards the cold temperate zone). The range of average annual rainfall is between 1000 and 2100 mm, often supplemented by fog, which keeps the forest additionally moist.

Since the highest rainfall occurs in the westerly wind zones on the rising slopes of mountains, nearly all temperate rainforests are on the western slopes of high coastal mountains – places such as Australia tend to be the exception rather than the norm. Here, sea breezes directed inland carry moisture-laden air masses towards the mountains, forcing them to rise. Thus, in mountainous areas, the total precipitation often exceeds 4000 mm. Extreme examples include Hucuktlis Lake on the west coast of Vancouver Island with almost 7000 mm or parts of West Coast New Zealand with over 11000 mm.

The exact definition of a temperate rainforest varies by location. In the Americas, a temperate rainforest needs to have at least 1400 mm of rainfall yearly with a mean annual temperature between 4–12°C. In Australia, however, the canopy of trees must cover at least 69 per cent of the sky with species that do not require fire to regenerate. For the purposes of Wikivoyage, no one criteria is used, but whether general consensus accepts it to be a temperate rainforest.

Destinations

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Map
Map of Temperate rainforests

Argentina

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Australia

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Queensland

Tasmania

Temperate rainforest in Cradle Mtn-Lake St Clair National Park in Central Tasmania

Victoria

Canada

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Chile

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A forest trail in Queulat National Park

New Zealand

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Norway

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Taiwan

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United States

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Redwood National Park with fog

See also

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