Lesotho: Forest area (% of land area)

Key figures

What the numbers say

From 2015 to 2024 there is no clear straight-line trend: a straight line explains less than 1% of the movement over 10 observed years, so the value is moving around more than it is heading anywhere.

Worked out from the yearly values above. How the checks work: standard deviation, z-scores and straight-line trends.

How it compares

In 2024, Lesotho had the 194th highest value of the 209 economies reporting that year. Higher is not always better: for some indicators the lowest value is the one to aim for. See the full ranking.

Closest to Lesotho in the 2024 ranking

• Kiribati — 191st of 209: 1.32%
• Kazakhstan — 192nd of 209: 1.3%
• Saudi Arabia — 193rd of 209: 1.29%
• Yemen, Rep. — 195th of 209: 1.04%
• Mauritania — 196th of 209: 0.99%
• Niger — 197th of 209: 0.84%

What this measures

Forest area (% of land area) is the share of total land area that is under natural or planted stands of trees of at least 5 meters in situ, whether productive or not, and excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems (for example, in fruit plantations and agroforestry systems) and trees in urban parks and gardens.

Limitations: FAO has been collecting and analyzing data on forest area since 1946. This is done at intervals of 5-10 years as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA). FAO reports data for 229 countries and territories; for the remaining 56 small island states and territories where no information is provided, a report is prepared by FAO using existing information and a literature search. The data are aggregated at sub-regional, regional and global levels by the FRA team at FAO, and estimates are produced by straight summation. The lag between the reference year and the actual production of data series as well as the frequency of data production varies between countries.

Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a weighted average.

All 35 values

Forest area (% of land area) in nearby economies

• Angola — 51.15% (2024)
• Benin — 28.12% (2024)
• Botswana — 27.76% (2024)
• Burkina Faso — 12.27% (2024)
• Burundi — 10.89% (2024)
• Cabo Verde — 12.52% (2024)
• Cameroon — 40.74% (2024)
• Central African Republic — 72.46% (2024)
• Chad — 2.97% (2024)
• Comoros — 17.79% (2024)
• Congo, Dem. Rep. — 61.52% (2024)

More environment data for Lesotho

• Rural population — 1.31 million (2025)
• Rural population (% of total population) — 55.33% (2025)
• Urban population — 1.06 million (2025)
• Urban population (% of total population) — 44.67% (2025)
• Aquaculture production (metric tons) — 2,107 (2024)
• Capture fisheries production (metric tons) — 74 (2024)
• Total fisheries production (metric tons) — 2,181 (2024)
• Rural population growth (annual %) — -0.67% (2025)
• Urban population growth (annual %) — 3.35% (2025)
• Fertilizer consumption (kilograms per hectare of arable land) — 6.09 (2024)

Reading data like this

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Questions people ask

What is Lesotho's forest area (% of land area)?

1.14% in 2024, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1990?

It is unchanged since 1990. The highest value was 1.14% in 1990 and the lowest 1.14% in 1990.

How does Lesotho rank?

194th highest of 209 economies with data for 2024.

Where does this data come from?

The World Bank's World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), uri: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL, publisher: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator AG.LND.FRST.ZS, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), uri: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL, publisher: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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