Delhi has most forest area among India's mega cities

Delhi continues to have the largest forest cover among India's mega cities, the State of Forest report, released by the Forest Survey of India has revealed.

- Snehil Sinha

But Delhi's forest cover recorded a minute reduction of 0.08 sq km between 2021 and 2023, the report released on Saturday said.

According to the United Nations criteria of urban agglomerations, a mega city has a population of 10 million or more. In India, six cities meet this criterion - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. In addition, Ahmedabad is also a rapidly growing city that is on the verge of becoming a mega city, and the State of Forest report added the Gujarat city to this list.

Delhi had 195.28 sq km of forest cover in 2023—which translates to 13.17% of its total area of 1,483 sq km, the report said. This was a slight drop from the 195.36 sq km of forest cover recorded in 2021—the last time a State of Forest report was released.

Mumbai is second on the list, with a forest cover of 110.84 sq km, followed by Bengaluru (89.61 sq km).

But Ahmedabad has seen the maximum gain in forest cover (5.48 sq km), while Chennai logged the most loss (2.64 sq km).