Piney Woods

The Piney Woods is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the southern United States, covering about 54,400 square miles across East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and southeastern Oklahoma. Its forests are dominated by several pine species along with hardwoods such as hickory and oak, and historically included dense stands like the Big Thicket in Texas, though extensive nineteenth and twentieth century logging greatly reduced forest cover across the region. The World Wide Fund for Nature classifies the Piney Woods as one of the critically endangered ecoregions of the United States, with more than 22 percent of its habitat lost and only about 11 percent currently protected; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designates most of the area as the South Central Plains, and it is sometimes called the Arkansas Timberlands in that state. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/