Timberland Area Location 
Location by Region and State 
The South has over 182 million acres of timberland, cover- 
ing 55 percent of the total land area from the Atlantic coast 
to the eastern sections of Texas and Oklahoma. Timberland 
is the predominant land use, encompassing 2 to 3 out of ev- 
ery 5 acres in all of the Southern States including eastern 
Texas and Oklahoma. 
Comparison With Cropland and Pasture 
Southwide, there are more acres in timberland than in 
cropland and pasture combined (app. table |.1). The 85 
million acres of timberland in the Southeast represent 58 
percent of the region’s land area and more than twice the 
area of cropland and pasture. In the South Central region, 
including eastern forested parts of Texas and Oklahoma, 
there are 65 million acres of cropland and pasture and 97 
million acres of timberland. Timberland represents 53 per- 
cent of that region’s total land area. 
Major Forest Management Types 
The South’s timberland is composed of a diversity of forest 
management types (fig. 1.1; Eyre 1980, USDA Forest Ser- 
vice 1982). Approximately one-third of the area is covered 
by pine types—41 million acres in natural pine stands and 
another 21 million acres in planted pine. Loblolly pine is by 
far the most abundant species. It occurs in natural stands 
in most sections of the Coastal Plain and Piedmont, where 
it has frequently seeded in on idle cropland and pasture. 
Loblolly pine has also been extensively planted throughout 
this area. 
Shortleaf pine, a common associate of loblolly, becomes 
an increasingly important component of stands at higher 
elevations, especially in the Cumberland plateau, the south- 
ern Appalachians, and the Ouachita Mountains of western 
Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. 
Longleaf pine was once the predominant species on the 
lower Coastal Plain. It was particularly well adapted for 
surviving frequent wildfires. Advances in fire control 
diminished the importance of this competitive advantage. 
Intensive logging, land clearing, and the establishment of 
loblolly and slash pine plantations have greatly reduced the 
area of longleaf pine over the years. The longleaf—slash 
pine association is now a dominant forest type primarily in 
southeastern Georgia and northern Florida. 
Million acres 
Southeast region 
All management types 84.9 
12.6 | Pine plantations 
21.4 Natural pine 
Mixed pine-hardwoods 
Upland hardwoods 
Bottomland hardwoods [138 | 
South Central region 
All management types 97.3 
Pine plantations 
19.5 Natural pine 
17.3 Mixed pine-hardwoods 
Upland hardwoods 35.7 
Bottomland hardwoods eZ] 
Figure 1.1—Area of timberland in the South, by region and 
forest management type, 1985 
The Southeast region has 34 million acres in planted and 
natural pine forest types, 6 million acres more than the 
South Central region. Georgia and Florida, in particular, 
have high concentrations of pine plantations, and all States 
in the region except Virginia have over one-fourth of their 
timberland area in natural pine types. 
Across much of the South, pine stands represent a transi- 
tional stage in natural succession to hardwood forest types. 
Mixed pine-hardwood stands occupy 27 million acres, or 15 
percent of the timberland in the South. Typically, these 
stands are 50 percent or more oak and 25 to 50 percent pine. 
Common associations include upland oak—shortleaf pine on 
dry sites in the foothills and plateaus, mixed hardwood— 
loblolly pine on moist sites, and scrub oak—longleaf pine 
in the sandhills of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. 
Mixed pine—hardwood forest types tend to be larger 
component of the forest resource in the South Central re- 
gion than in the Southeast. Close to two-thirds of the 
