Africa’s tropical rainforests are concentrated in a broad belt across the continent’s equatorial middle, with the vast majority sitting in the Congo Basin of Central Africa. Smaller but ecologically critical patches stretch along the West African coast, dot the mountains of East Africa, and line the eastern edge of Madagascar. Together, these forests make up the second-largest tropical rainforest area on Earth after the Amazon.
The Congo Basin: Africa’s Rainforest Core
The Congo Basin dominates any map of African rainforest. Its drainage area covers more than 1.3 million square miles (3.4 million square kilometers) across the heart of the continent, and the dense tropical forest within it is by far the largest on the African landmass. The Democratic Republic of the Congo alone holds roughly 107 million hectares of humid rainforest, nearly five times more than any other African nation.
The basin spans several countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo contains the bulk, but significant forest also extends into the Republic of the Congo (about 20.9 million hectares), Gabon (22.4 million hectares), Cameroon (20 million hectares), the Central African Republic (5.8 million hectares), and smaller portions of northern Angola, western Zambia, and parts of Tanzania. If you picture the African continent, the rainforest fills a wide swath roughly between 4°N and 4°S latitude, straddling the equator.
Gabon is sometimes called Africa’s greenest country because forest covers roughly 85% of its land area. Cameroon’s southern half transitions from dense lowland rainforest near the coast to semi-deciduous forest further inland. The Republic of the Congo, despite being far smaller than its neighbor the DRC, ranks among the most heavily forested nations on the continent.
West African Rainforests
A second major zone of tropical rainforest runs along the coast of West Africa, from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. These are known collectively as the Guinean Forests and split into two blocks: the Upper Guinean Forests stretching from Guinea to Ghana, and the Lower Guinean Forests covering southern Nigeria and into western Cameroon, where they eventually merge with the Congo Basin forest.
A drier gap called the Dahomey Gap, roughly where Togo and Benin sit, separates the two blocks. This corridor of savanna and dry woodland interrupts what was once a more continuous forest belt, creating two genetically and ecologically distinct forest regions. Liberia holds the largest remaining tract of Upper Guinean Forest, while Nigeria’s Cross River region is one of the last strongholds of the Lower Guinean block before it connects to Cameroon’s forests.
East Africa’s Mountain and Coastal Fragments
East Africa doesn’t have the sweeping lowland rainforest found in Central or West Africa, but it holds some of the continent’s most biologically unique forest patches. These fall into two main groups: the montane forests of the Albertine Rift (along the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern DRC) and the ancient forests of the Eastern Arc Mountains and coastal lowlands in Tanzania and Kenya.
The Eastern Arc Mountains run through Tanzania in a chain of isolated mountain blocks, each capped with moist forest fed by moisture from the Indian Ocean. Places like the Usambara Mountains, the Udzungwa Mountains, and the Taita Hills in southern Kenya are home to extraordinary numbers of species found nowhere else. Along the coast, fragments of lowland tropical forest extend from southern Kenya through Tanzania and include Zanzibar. The Tana River forests in Kenya, for example, shelter the critically endangered Tana River red colobus monkey, a primate found only there.
These forests are heavily fragmented. Centuries of clearing have reduced them to scattered patches, and the species within them are highly vulnerable because populations are small and isolated from one another.
Madagascar’s Eastern Rainforest Strip
Madagascar, sitting off Africa’s southeastern coast, once had a continuous band of tropical rainforest running along roughly 1,600 kilometers of its eastern shoreline. The island’s central mountain spine catches moisture-laden trade winds from the Indian Ocean, creating the wet conditions that sustain this forest. Since human settlement began around 2,000 years ago, most of that original forest has been cleared, and what remains exists in fragmented patches under constant pressure.
The surviving rainforest ranges from lowland littoral forest near the coast (some of the most threatened vegetation on the island) to mid-altitude and montane forest further inland and at higher elevations. Key remaining sites stretch from the far north near Vohemar down to Fort Dauphin at the island’s southern tip. Madagascar’s western side, by contrast, is much drier and supports deciduous forest and spiny thicket rather than rainforest.
Climate Conditions That Define These Forests
African tropical rainforests sit in the equatorial climate zone where temperatures stay warm year-round and rainfall is heavy. The Congo Basin receives enough precipitation to maintain a maximum water deficit of roughly 300 millimeters per month across its humid forest zones. Areas where that deficit drops below 400 millimeters generally transition to drier forest types or savanna, which is why rainforest gives way to woodland and grassland as you move north or south away from the equator.
Rainfall isn’t uniform across the belt. The eastern Congo Basin tends to be wetter, while the western portions and parts of West Africa experience a more pronounced dry season. Climate projections suggest the eastern Congo may get wetter in coming decades, while western equatorial Africa faces increasing dry-season water stress, a pattern that could gradually shift where rainforest can survive.
Deforestation and Current Threats
Africa’s rainforests are shrinking. Both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo recorded their highest primary forest loss ever in 2024. In the Republic of the Congo, primary forest loss jumped 150% from 2023 to 2024, nearly double any previous year on record.
The drivers differ from those in Southeast Asia or South America. Shifting cultivation, where small-scale farmers clear forest for temporary planting and then move on, is the main cause of forest loss in the Congo Basin. Charcoal production is another major factor, since charcoal remains the dominant cooking fuel across much of Central Africa. Industrial logging and large-scale agriculture play a role but are not yet the primary drivers the way palm oil and cattle ranching are in other tropical regions.
Fire made conditions worse in 2024. Hotter and drier conditions than usual meant fires were responsible for 45% of forest loss in the region that year. West African forests face similar pressures but are further along in the process. Countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have already lost the vast majority of their original forest cover, leaving the remaining patches small and isolated. Madagascar’s situation is similarly dire, with its eastern littoral forests described as almost certainly condemned to extinction without immediate preservation efforts.