What is the difference between a jungle and a rainforest?

In everyday speech the words are often used interchangeably. Strictly, 'rainforest' is the scientific term for the whole forest, while 'jungle' tends to mean dense, tangled vegetation, the kind that grows where light reaches the ground, such as riverbanks and clearings.

What are the layers of a rainforest?

From top to bottom: the emergent layer of the tallest trees, the canopy, the understorey and the forest floor. Each layer has its own light, humidity and wildlife.

Why do rainforests get so much rain?

Near the equator, strong sunshine heats moist air, which rises, cools and condenses into heavy rain. The trees also release huge amounts of water vapour, which helps recycle rainfall across the forest.

Which is the largest rainforest?

The Amazon, covering about 5.5 million km² across nine countries and territories in South America. The Congo Basin in Central Africa is the second largest.

Can I explore a rainforest in the app?

Yes. You can land in a jungle and explore it in interactive 3D, looking up through the layers from the forest floor to the canopy.

The layered, dripping green heart of the tropics

Jungle

3D landscape · Amazon rainforest, Brazil

Land here and explore →

A jungle, in everyday language, is a dense tropical forest; scientists usually call it a tropical rainforest. These forests grow in a belt around the equator where it is warm all year and rain falls heavily and often. The great blocks are the Amazon in South America, the Congo Basin in Central Africa, and the islands of South-east Asia and New Guinea. In this app you can land on the forest floor and explore a rainforest in interactive 3D.

Rainforests are often described as covering only around 6% of Earth's land, yet they are thought to be home to roughly half or more of all land species, many still undescribed. They store vast amounts of carbon, help make their own rain and feed some of the largest rivers on the planet. They are also being cleared and burned at a worrying rate, which makes understanding them all the more important.

Key facts

Where they grow: Roughly 23° N to 23° SMostly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn
Typical rainfall: ≈ 2,000 mm a year or moreSome places receive well over 5,000 mm
Typical temperature: ≈ 20–30°CLittle change from season to season
Share of Earth's land: Roughly 6%A commonly cited estimate; figures vary by definition
Largest rainforest: The AmazonAbout 5.5 million km² of forest across nine countries
Second largest: The Congo BasinSpans six Central African countries
Tallest trees: Up to ≈ 60–90 mA yellow meranti in Borneo has been measured at about 100 m
Light at the floor: Often around 2%Most sunlight is caught by the canopy
Main layers: 4Emergent, canopy, understorey and forest floor

The world's great rainforests

The Amazon is by far the largest tropical rainforest, covering about 5.5 million km² across Brazil, Peru, Colombia and six other countries and territories. It holds an extraordinary variety of life, from jaguars and giant otters to tens of thousands of tree species, and is crossed by the Amazon River and its thousands of tributaries.

The Congo Basin rainforest in Central Africa is the second largest. It is home to forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, which live nowhere else in the wild. In South-east Asia, the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra shelter orangutans, hornbills and the giant Rafflesia flower, while New Guinea, the world's largest tropical island, is famous for its birds-of-paradise and tree kangaroos. A 2020 study concluded that New Guinea has more plant species than any other island.

The vertical layers of the forest

A rainforest is built in storeys. At the top, scattered emergent trees push above the rest, often 50–60 m tall or more, exposed to strong sun and wind. Below them, the canopy forms a continuous roof of leaves and branches, typically 30–45 m up. Most of the forest's life, from insects and frogs to monkeys and birds, lives here, close to the light and the fruit.

Beneath the canopy is the understorey, a dim, still zone of young trees, palms and shrubs with large leaves that make the most of scarce light. At the bottom is the forest floor, which receives only a tiny fraction of the sunlight, often quoted as around 2%. It is surprisingly open in many places, carpeted with leaf litter that fungi, termites and other decomposers break down remarkably quickly.

Living on other plants

Many rainforest plants never touch the ground. Epiphytes such as orchids, ferns and bromeliads grow on branches to reach the light, while woody vines called lianas climb up tree trunks. Strangler figs begin life high in a host tree and send roots down to the soil, sometimes eventually enclosing the host entirely.

Climate, rain and rivers

Rainforests sit near the equator, where strong sunlight heats the ground and warm, moist air rises, cools and drops its water as heavy rain, often in afternoon thunderstorms. Temperatures stay warm all year, so the seasons are defined by rainfall rather than heat. The air is humid, frequently above 80%.

The forests also help make their own weather. Trees draw water from the soil and release it through their leaves, and over the Amazon this moisture forms what are sometimes called flying rivers, streams of water vapour that carry rain far inland. On the ground, the Amazon River discharges more water than any other river, roughly a fifth of all the fresh water that rivers deliver to the oceans. The Congo is the deepest river known, with measured depths of more than 200 m.

Biodiversity

No land habitat is richer in species. A single hectare of Amazon forest can hold hundreds of tree species, and a single tree can host many species of ant and beetle. Scientists estimate that a large share of rainforest species, especially insects, have not yet been named. Warmth, rain and millions of years of relatively stable conditions are thought to have given life time to diversify into countless niches.

Despite the lushness, rainforest soils are often poor. Nutrients are held mainly in living plants rather than in the ground, and fallen leaves are recycled within weeks. That is one reason cleared rainforest land often loses fertility quickly. Rainforests have also given the world foods and medicines, including cocoa, rubber, bananas and compounds used in drugs, and they are home to many Indigenous peoples whose knowledge of the forest runs deep.

Deforestation and the future

Rainforests are being cleared for cattle ranching, soya, palm oil, logging, mining and roads. Fire is a growing part of the problem, especially in drought years. Global Forest Watch, which tracks tree cover by satellite, reported that tropical primary forest loss in 2024 reached a record high, driven largely by fires. Yearly figures rise and fall with policy, enforcement and weather, so the trend is closely watched.

Scientists worry that parts of the Amazon could pass a tipping point, beyond which a drier climate would turn forest into degraded savanna. When and whether this might happen is uncertain and actively studied. Protected areas, Indigenous land rights, better monitoring and changes in global supply chains have all been shown to slow clearing in some places.

Surprising facts about Jungle

Dust blown from the Sahara Desert across the Atlantic helps fertilise the Amazon, supplying nutrients such as phosphorus.
Some rainforest frogs never enter water to breed; they raise their tadpoles in tiny pools held in bromeliad leaves high in the canopy.
Leafcutter ants do not eat the leaves they carry; they use them to grow a fungus, which is their actual food.
The rainforest floor is often less tangled than people imagine; dense, jungly thickets usually grow where light breaks through, such as along rivers or in clearings.
Borneo's yellow meranti tree nicknamed Menara, measured at about 100 m, is the tallest tropical tree known.
In the Amazon, seasonal floods can raise rivers by around 10 m, turning large areas into flooded forest where fish swim among the tree trunks.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a jungle and a rainforest?: In everyday speech the words are often used interchangeably. Strictly, 'rainforest' is the scientific term for the whole forest, while 'jungle' tends to mean dense, tangled vegetation, the kind that grows where light reaches the ground, such as riverbanks and clearings.
What are the layers of a rainforest?: From top to bottom: the emergent layer of the tallest trees, the canopy, the understorey and the forest floor. Each layer has its own light, humidity and wildlife.
Why do rainforests get so much rain?: Near the equator, strong sunshine heats moist air, which rises, cools and condenses into heavy rain. The trees also release huge amounts of water vapour, which helps recycle rainfall across the forest.
Which is the largest rainforest?: The Amazon, covering about 5.5 million km² across nine countries and territories in South America. The Congo Basin in Central Africa is the second largest.
Can I explore a rainforest in the app?: Yes. You can land in a jungle and explore it in interactive 3D, looking up through the layers from the forest floor to the canopy.

Keep exploring

The landscapes in Ember’s Universe are procedural 3D scenes modelled on real places. The landforms, plants and light follow the real thing, but the details are generated, not mapped.

Sources