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Area covered by beech tree species or beech forest cover type Background information

Area covered by beech tree species or beech forest cover type

In order to ascertain the tree species areas, the area percentages of the individual tree species in a mixed forest are divided up by “calculated pure stands".

Young beech. © Petair - stock.adobe.com

Hence, for example, the cited area of beeches contains not only the pure beech forests, but also the share of beeches in the mixed forests.

By contrast, the “beech forest cover type” contains all forests in which the beech is the most common tree species – including the blended in areas of other tree species.
This is why the beech area of 1.68 million hectares differs from the area of the “beech forest cover type” with 1.80 million hectares.