According to the India State of Forest Report 2023, which were the top three States in the country in terms of area under forests?

Question

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Correct — D, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha. This is the ISFR 2023 ranking of States by Recorded Forest Area (RFA) — the area legally notified as forest in government records: Madhya Pradesh about 94,689 sq km, Maharashtra about 61,952 sq km and Odisha about 61,204 sq km. Read the question that way and the trio is exact. If instead you rank by forest cover (the satellite-mapped green canopy), ISFR 2023 gives Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — a trio that no option offers, which is the tell that the paper is asking about recorded forest area. Madhya Pradesh is first on every one of these lists.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Chhattisgarh is genuinely high — third by forest cover and fourth by recorded forest area — but Jharkhand is nowhere near the top three on either measure, so the trio fails.  (b) Both Himachal Pradesh and Manipur are well-forested relative to their size, but in absolute area neither comes close to the large central and eastern States.  (c) The most tempting option, because Arunachal Pradesh really is second in forest cover. Sikkim kills it: with a total geographical area of only about 7,096 sq km, it cannot rank third in any absolute forest-area list.

Concept: The India State of Forest Report is published every two years by the Forest Survey of India (Dehradun) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; ISFR 2023 was released in December 2024. It reports three different 'forest area' numbers that students routinely merge into one: Recorded Forest Area (land legally notified as forest — reserved, protected and unclassed), Forest Cover (all land of one hectare or more with over 10 per cent tree canopy, mapped from satellite, whether or not it is legally forest) and Forest and Tree Cover (forest cover plus trees outside forests). The State ranking changes depending on which of the three you use.

State PCS 2026 Q3 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q3 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer