The Florida state forest system consists of 38 state forests and one working ranch managed by the Florida Forest Service (FFS), a division of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Together they cover more than The Florida Forest Service's figure of 1,236,322 acres is a current system total. The areas in the table below come from each forest's most recent management plan and do not include land bought since, so they add up to about 1,181,000 acres. in 39 of Florida's 67 counties.Count of the counties named in the table below. The forests are managed for multiple use, a concept set out in Florida law under which timber is harvested on a sustainable basis alongside outdoor recreation, habitat for game and nongame wildlife, and the protection of water resources and archaeological and historical sites. Most of the forests are also run as wildlife management areas under a cooperative agreement with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and they offer hiking, camping, paddling and designated off-highway vehicle trails.
Florida's state forests and state parks began as a single program. In 1935 the Legislature authorized the Florida Board of Forestry to manage forests and parks that the federal government had acquired and turned over to the state, and each tract was assigned to one system or the other by its "highest use": land suited to timber and lacking unusual scenic, historic or botanical value went to forestry. The first state forest, Pine Log State Forest, was bought from the Henderson-Waits Lumber Company in 1936, and Cary State Forest followed in 1937. Three more began as federal land-use and resettlement projects of the 1930s, Blackwater River, Welaka and Withlacoochee, and came to the state by lease or deed between 1938 and 1958. Most of the system is far younger. Purchases in almost every year from 1987 to 2009, funded through the Conservation and Recreation Lands Trust Fund and the Preservation 2000 program, brought the number of state forests to 35, and later land has come through Florida Forever. Of the 39 units in this list, 29 were first acquired after 1989. The newest, Sandy Creek State Forest in Bay County, was bought in 2025 and has not yet opened to the public.
This list covers all 38 currently managed state forests as well as Babcock Ranch Preserve, a Florida Heritage Working Ranch that the FFS has managed alongside them since 2016. The units range in size from Blackwater River, at more than 226,000 acres the largest state forest in Florida, to the 58-acre Holopaw State Forest. Acquisition years, areas and notable features in the table come from each forest's current ten-year land management plan, except for Sandy Creek, which does not yet have one.
Interactive map
Florida state forests Forest nameImageAcquiredThe year the State of Florida acquired, or first leased, the parcel that forms the initial area of the forest. Where the land was already state-owned, the year it was assigned to the Florida Forest Service is given instead. Later additions are not reflected.County and locationCounties are those named in each forest's land management plan. Coordinates mark the centroid of the forest's largest parcel in the Florida Forest Service boundary layer.AreaAcreage as stated in each forest's current ten-year land management plan, as of that plan's approval; later acquisitions are not reflected. Figures include sovereign submerged lands where a plan counts them.Notable featureBabcock Ranch Preserve 2006 Charlotte Former Crescent B Ranch, bought by the state in the largest single conservation land purchase in Florida's history and run as a working cattle ranchBelmore State Forest 2004 Clay The Satsuma Tract lies on land in central Clay County once used for commercial camphor farmingBig Shoals State Forest 1986 Hamilton Former Brown Tract, bought from The Nature Conservancy in 1986 and designated a state forest in 1989Blackwater River State Forest 1938 Santa Rosa, Okaloosa Florida's largest state forest, begun as a 1930s federal resettlement project and named for the Blackwater River, which runs through it for about 30 milesCarl Duval Moore State Forest 1993 Putnam Left to the state by Carl Duval Moore, whose estate was settled in 1994; one of the smallest state forests, its two tracts near Interlachen take in parts of Up and Down Lake and Hardesty LakeCary State Forest 1937 Duval, Nassau Florida's second state forest, named for the George F. and Charlotte C. Cary family, who sold the first parcel to the stateCharles H. Bronson State Forest 2008 Seminole, Orange Established by the Legislature in 2008 and named for Charles H. Bronson, Florida's Commissioner of Agriculture from 2001 to 2011Etoniah Creek State Forest 1995 Putnam Holds the only known population of Etonia rosemary, a federally endangered shrub first described in 1991Four Creeks State Forest 2005 Nassau Named for Alligator (Mills), Thomas, Boggy and Plummer creeks, which join at the east end of the forest to form the headwaters of the Nassau RiverGoethe State Forest 1992 Levy, Alachua Named for J. T. Goethe, from whom the original tract was bought in 1992; home to the Goethe Giant, the state's sixth-largest bald cypressHolopaw State Forest 1961 Osceola Slash pine plantation beside U.S. Route 192 east of Holopaw, bought by the Florida Development Commission from Consolidated Naval Stores Company for about $300; it shrank by 9 acres when the highway was widened in 2005Indian Lake State Forest 2007 Marion Bought to stop a planned strip mall and 13,000-unit subdivision; named for Indian Lake, a deep sinkhole lake connected directly to the Floridan aquiferJennings State Forest 1990 Clay, Duval Protects the North Fork of Black Creek and Yellow Water Creek; the S. Bryan Jennings family owned much of the land from the early 1900sJohn M. Bethea State Forest 2001 Baker Named for John M. Bethea, State Forester for more than 17 yearsKissimmee Bend State Forest 2020 Okeechobee Globally imperiled dry prairie in the Everglades Headwaters, bought through the Triple Diamond Florida Forever projectLake George State Forest 1993 Volusia About of water frontage, of it on the St. Johns River, among the public lands surrounding Lake George, Florida's second-largest lakeLake Talquin State Forest 1977 Leon, Gadsden, Liberty, Wakulla Occupies much of the shoreline of Lake Talquin west of Tallahassee; most of the land was donated by Florida Power Corporation in the 1970sLake Wales Ridge State Forest 1984 Polk The largest tract of Lake Wales Ridge xeric upland in public ownership and its largest protected area of ancient scrubLittle Big Econ State Forest 1993 Seminole Named for the Little and Big Econlockhatchee RiversMatanzas State Forest 2003 St. Johns Bought from Rayonier in 2003 and protects of undeveloped salt marsh on the Matanzas River, the last undisturbed salt marsh in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research ReserveMyakka State Forest 1995 Sarasota Roads laid out for a 1956 housing development were never paved and now serve as the forest trailsNewnans Lake State Forest 2015 Alachua On the western shore of Newnans Lake east of Gainesville, where more than 100 prehistoric dugout canoes were found on the exposed lakebed in 2000Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest 1996 Hendry, Collier Centered on the Okaloacoochee Slough, a slough marsh; the water feeds the Fakahatchee Strand and Big Cypress National PreservePeace River State Forest 2014 DeSoto Formerly the Peaceful Horse Ranch, where an earlier owner bred rhinoceros, giraffes and other exotic animalsPicayune Strand State Forest 1983 Collier Most of the land was allotted in the 1960s as Golden Gate Estates, meant to be the largest subdivision in AmericaPine Log State Forest 1936 Bay, Washington Florida's first state forest, bought from the Henderson-Waits Lumber Company in 1936Plank Road State Forest 2017 Leon, Jefferson Named for a mid-1800s plank road from Newport toward the Georgia line that was never finishedPoint Washington State Forest 1992 Walton Named for a late-19th-century sawmill community on Choctawhatchee BayRalph E. Simmons Memorial State Forest 1992 Nassau Leased to the Forest Service in 1992 as St. Marys State Forest and renamed in 1996 for Ralph E. Simmons, a former chairman of the St. Johns River Water Management District boardRoss Prairie State Forest 1994 Marion Classic longleaf pine, turkey oak and wiregrass uplands southwest of Ocala, sharing a boundary with the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida GreenwaySandy Creek State Forest 2025 Bay Acquired through the Bear Creek Forest Florida Forever project and not yet open to the publicSeminole State Forest1990 Lake Two tracts with 19 named springs and parts of the Wekiva River and Black Water Creek, both in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers SystemTate's Hell State Forest 1994 Franklin, Liberty Covers 54 percent of the land in Franklin CountyTiger Bay State Forest 1979 Volusia Named for Tiger Bay, an extensive wetland on an ancient marine terrace between the DeLand and Daytona ridges west of Daytona BeachTwin Rivers State Forest 1994 Hamilton, Madison, Suwannee The Blue Springs Longleaf Tract is one of the state's best examples of old-growth longleaf pine and wiregrassWakulla State Forest 1999 Wakulla, Leon Lies in the recharge area of Wakulla Springs, one of the world's largest single-vent freshwater springsWatson Island State Forest 1976 St. Johns Two tracts near St. Augustine. The Watson Island Tract has just over of St. Johns River frontage, where pine, cypress and hardwood timber was cut and rafted downriver in the early 1900sWelaka State Forest 1992 Putnam Began as a 1935 federal Resettlement Administration forestry and wildlife project, later a University of Florida research reserve; The Forest Service's training center is hereWithlacoochee State Forest 1958 Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Pasco, Sumter Assembled by the federal government from 1936 to 1939 as a land-use project
References Notes
Citations
External links Florida Forest Service