In the world
Peatlands cover some 423 million hectares of the Earth, which represents 2.8% of the total land surface area (Xu et al., 2017). Peatlands are more widespread in Asia (38% of peatlands) and in North America (32%) followed by Europe (12%) and South America (11%).
Canada contains 27% of the world’s peatlands and is the second country with the most peatlands after Russia.
Source: Xu, J., P. J. Morris, J. Liu and J. Holden (2017). “PEATMAP: refining estimates of global peatland distribution based on a meta-analysis.” Catena 160: 134-140. http://archive.researchdata.leeds.ac.uk/251/
