The tundra biome spans at least eight countries in the Northern Hemisphere, with Russia and Canada claiming the vast majority of it. The Arctic tundra zone alone covers roughly 7.1 million square kilometers, or about five percent of Earth’s land surface, wrapping around the top of the globe through Russia, Canada, the United States (Alaska), Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and the Danish territory of Greenland. But tundra also exists far from the Arctic, on high mountaintops and near the Antarctic, which pulls a surprising number of additional nations into the picture.
The Arctic Tundra Belt and Its Two Dominant Countries
When people think of tundra, they usually picture the Arctic version: a vast, treeless landscape of low shrubs, mosses, lichens, and grasses lying north of the boreal forest. This circumpolar band of vegetation covers about 7.1 million square kilometers, with glaciers taking up roughly 29 percent of the total Arctic zone and the remaining area constituting the tundra biome proper.1Environmental Research Letters. Circumpolar Arctic vegetation: a hierarchic review and roadmap toward an internationally consistent approach to survey, archive and classify tundra plot data Two countries dominate that space. Russia holds the largest share of Low Arctic tundra, where low shrubs are the prevailing vegetation. Canada has by far the most terrain in the High Arctic, characterized by barren ground and prostrate dwarf-shrub tundra.2Journal of Vegetation Science. The Circumpolar Arctic vegetation map Between them, Russia and Canada account for a commanding majority of all Arctic tundra on Earth.
This split between the two countries reflects geography more than anything else. Russia’s northern coastline stretches across an enormous longitudinal range, exposing huge lowland plains to Arctic conditions. Research sites across the Russian tundra span from roughly 65°N to 74°N latitude and from the Ural Mountains eastward to near the Bering Strait, covering arctic tundra, typical tundra, southern shrub tundra, and mountain tundra.3Global Change Biology. An empirical model of carbon fluxes in Russian tundra Canada’s tundra, meanwhile, extends across the northern mainland and through a sprawling archipelago of Arctic islands reaching almost to the North Pole. That island geography is why Canada leads in the coldest, most barren category of High Arctic terrain.
The Smaller Arctic Tundra Nations
Beyond Russia and Canada, several other countries contain meaningful stretches of Arctic or near-Arctic tundra, even though their total areas are much smaller.
The United States has tundra entirely through Alaska. The state’s North Slope, the coastal plain stretching north of the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Sea, is classic Arctic tundra underlain by continuous permafrost. Alaska’s tundra has been a focus of research on permafrost degradation, with studies showing that thermokarst rates there increased by about 60 percent between 1950 and 2015 due to warming climate and wildfire.4One Earth. Thermokarst acceleration in Arctic tundra driven by climate change and fire disturbance The Aleutian Islands and parts of western Alaska also support tundra-like vegetation at lower latitudes, thanks to cold maritime conditions.
Norway contributes tundra in two ways. Its mainland northern tip, Finnmark, hosts patches of tundra above and beyond the treeline. More significantly, Norway governs the Svalbard archipelago, a group of islands between about 74°N and 81°N that is almost entirely tundra and glacier. Svalbard’s rock ptarmigan population has been studied as an example of how tundra wildlife colonized remote Arctic islands.5Ecography. Islands in the ice: colonisation routes for rock ptarmigan to the Svalbard archipelago Sweden and Finland both have tundra on the high-elevation plateaus of Scandinavia, particularly in the Scandes mountain range, where conditions above the treeline mirror those of the Arctic lowlands. Iceland, while technically just south of the Arctic Circle, has extensive tundra-like vegetation across its interior highlands and along its coasts, thanks to cool temperatures and persistent wind.
Greenland deserves special mention. Politically it is a self-governing territory of Denmark, but geographically it is the world’s largest island and most of its ice-free coastline is tundra. The habitable fringe of Greenland, particularly its western and northern coasts, supports typical Arctic tundra plant communities. When people refer to Denmark as a “tundra country,” they almost always mean Greenland rather than the Danish mainland, which has a temperate climate.
What Separates the High Arctic from the Low Arctic
Not all Arctic tundra looks the same, and the distinction matters when counting countries. Ecologists typically divide it into High Arctic and Low Arctic zones, based on how much plant cover the ground supports and how warm summers get. High Arctic areas have short, cold summers and sparse vegetation, sometimes with more bare ground than plant cover. Low Arctic areas are warmer in summer, support denser vegetation including knee-high shrubs, and can have productivity levels during the growing season that rival temperate grasslands.6Biological Reviews. THE ECOLOGY OF ARCTIC AND ALPINE PLANTS
Warming experiments across both zones have found that Low Arctic sites tend to produce stronger growth responses to higher temperatures, while High Arctic sites show greater reproductive responses, with plants investing more heavily in seed production when temperatures rise.7Ecological Monographs. RESPONSES OF TUNDRA PLANTS TO EXPERIMENTAL WARMING: META-ANALYSIS OF THE INTERNATIONAL TUNDRA EXPERIMENT This difference has practical significance for which countries will see the most dramatic ecological shifts as the climate warms. Canada’s vast High Arctic islands might see colonization by new plant species, while Russia’s Low Arctic shrublands are more likely to see existing vegetation grow taller and denser.
The Taiga-Tundra Transition Zone
There is no crisp line where forest ends and tundra begins. Instead, a broad transitional belt called the taiga-tundra ecotone separates the two biomes. This zone covers about 3 million square kilometers worldwide, split roughly evenly between North America (including Greenland, at 53 percent) and Eurasia (47 percent). Most of it consists of open-canopy forest gradually thinning into treeless terrain, with diffuse forest landscapes making up about 79 percent of the ecotone and abrupt transitions only about 19 percent.8Environmental Research Letters. The bioclimatic extent and pattern of the cold edge of the boreal forest: the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone
This matters for the question of which countries “have” tundra because the ecotone blurs the boundary. Parts of northern Russia, Canada, Scandinavia, and Alaska that appear forested on a satellite image at one resolution look like tundra at another. The ecotone also means that countries with boreal forest, including some that are not usually thought of as tundra nations, have landscapes that function as partial tundra ecosystems. Northern portions of Mongolia, for example, sit near the edge of the boreal zone with sparse tree cover and permafrost, but are not conventionally classified as tundra.
Alpine Tundra Around the World
Arctic tundra gets most of the attention, but tundra also exists on mountaintops wherever the elevation is high enough to push temperatures below the treeline. Alpine tundra shares many characteristics with its Arctic counterpart: low-growing plants, harsh winds, a short growing season, and soils that may be frozen for much of the year. The key difference is that alpine tundra can occur at any latitude, from equatorial peaks in East Africa and South America to the temperate mountains of Europe and Central Asia.
This dramatically expands the list of tundra countries. The alpine biome supports unique biodiversity across mountain ranges worldwide, with hotspots concentrated in tropical and subtropical mountains of Central and South America, while temperate mountain regions tend to have lower species richness.9PubMed Central. Contrasting patterns of alpine biodiversity across mountains and taxa worldwide Countries with notable alpine tundra include:
- South America: The Andes host alpine tundra (locally called “puna” or “páramo”) across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
- Africa: Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Rwenzori Mountains spanning Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Ethiopian Highlands all have alpine zones.
- Asia: The Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas create enormous alpine tundra areas across China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, and parts of Pakistan and Tajikistan. Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan also have high-altitude tundra.
- Europe: Alpine tundra exists in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, and Spain, among others.
- Oceania: New Zealand’s Southern Alps and a few peaks in Papua New Guinea reach alpine conditions.
If you include alpine tundra, the count of “tundra countries” easily exceeds 30. The alpine biome’s plants share adaptations with Arctic tundra species: they tend to be perennial herbs or low shrubs, keep most of their biomass underground, and can photosynthesize at temperatures much lower than ordinary plants require. Alpine plants also tend to have higher light-saturation thresholds for photosynthesis than Arctic ones, reflecting the stronger solar radiation at high elevation.6Biological Reviews. THE ECOLOGY OF ARCTIC AND ALPINE PLANTS
Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic Tundra
The Southern Hemisphere has its own tundra, though it is tiny compared to the Arctic version. No trees grow on the Antarctic continent, and the ice-free areas that do support plant life host communities of mosses, lichens, liverworts, and just two native vascular plant species (a grass and a pearlwort). These are found mainly along the Antarctic Peninsula and on nearby island groups. Plant life has been recorded at latitudes between 60°S and 86°S, with species richness declining along the Peninsula as conditions grow more extreme.10Journal of Biogeography. Diversity and biogeography of the Antarctic flora
Antarctica itself is not a country, so it does not add to the list in the conventional sense. However, several sub-Antarctic islands with tundra-like vegetation do belong to sovereign nations. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (United Kingdom), the Kerguelen and Crozet Islands (France), Macquarie Island (Australia), and the Heard and McDonald Islands (Australia) all support sub-Antarctic tundra communities. These islands are cold, windswept, and treeless, though their milder maritime climate means they tend to have somewhat richer plant life than continental Antarctica.
Permafrost and the Ground Beneath the Tundra
Tundra and permafrost are closely linked but not identical. Permafrost is ground that stays at or below freezing for at least two consecutive years, and it extends well beyond the tundra biome into boreal forests and even some temperate areas. Across the Northern Hemisphere, the total area with some permafrost is around 21 million square kilometers, covering roughly 22 percent of exposed land.11Earth-Science Reviews. Northern Hemisphere permafrost map based on TTOP modelling for 2000–2016 at 1 km2 scale That is far larger than the tundra biome itself, because permafrost also underlies vast tracts of forest in Siberia, northern Canada, and Alaska.
This distinction adds a few countries to the broader “frozen ground” conversation that do not have tundra per se. Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and even parts of northern China sit on permafrost but are covered by steppe grassland or forest, not tundra vegetation. The tundra biome specifically refers to the treeless zone where cold temperatures and short summers prevent tree growth, not simply anywhere the ground is frozen.
Wildlife of the Tundra Countries
The tundra supports a deceptively active food web despite its harsh conditions. In the High Arctic, snow geese are the dominant herbivores, followed by lemmings, and together they consume less than 10 percent of annual plant production in most years. Predators, on the other hand, are far more efficient: Arctic foxes, weasels, and raptors consume anywhere from 20 to 100 percent of the herbivore production in a given year.12PubMed. Disentangling trophic relationships in a High Arctic tundra ecosystem through food web modeling That imbalance means tundra ecosystems are strongly shaped by predator-prey dynamics, especially the lemming cycle. In years when lemming populations crash, predators switch to bird nests and other prey, creating ripple effects across the entire ecosystem.
Caribou and reindeer (the same species, called caribou in North America and reindeer in Eurasia) are the iconic large herbivores. Their migrations cross tundra in Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia, making them one of the few animal species whose range literally spans most tundra countries. Musk oxen, meanwhile, are restricted to the North American Arctic and Greenland, with some reintroduced populations in Norway and Russia.
How Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
The tundra biome is not static, and where it exists today is shifting faster than almost any other terrestrial biome. The Arctic is warming roughly two to three times faster than the global average, and that warming is already changing vegetation patterns. Models project that by the 2050s, at least half of all vegetated Arctic areas could shift to a different vegetation type, with woody cover increasing by as much as 52 percent.13Nature Climate Change. Shifts in Arctic vegetation and associated feedbacks under climate change In plain terms, shrubs are getting taller, denser, and more widespread, and they are creeping northward into areas that were previously too cold for them.
This shrub expansion is not uniform across countries. European tundra sites show greater sensitivity to summer temperature increases than North American ones, and taller shrubs like alders and willows growing at their northern range edges are the most responsive.14Nature Climate Change. Climate sensitivity of shrub growth across the tundra biome The boundary between the Low and High Arctic, where permafrost is actively thawing and most of the world’s permafrost soil carbon is stored, turns out to be the zone with the greatest climate sensitivity for shrub growth. That is a worrying combination: the places where tundra vegetation is changing fastest are also the places where the most carbon is locked in frozen ground.
Fire is accelerating the process in some areas. Tundra fires were historically rare, but they are becoming more common in Alaska and Siberia. In Arctic Alaska, wildfire has been disproportionately responsible for permafrost degradation, creating about nine times more ground subsidence in burned areas than in unburned tundra over a 40-year period.4One Earth. Thermokarst acceleration in Arctic tundra driven by climate change and fire disturbance Once fire strips away the insulating organic layer, permafrost thaws from above, the ground collapses, and the resulting waterlogged or dried-out terrain shifts toward entirely different plant communities. In one well-studied case, permafrost thaw subsidence was detected across 34 percent of a burned tundra area within seven years of the fire, compared to less than 1 percent in similar unburned terrain.15Scientific Reports. Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
Ancient Tundra and the Bering Land Bridge
The tundra biome has not always looked the way it does now. During the last ice age, a very different landscape occupied much of what is today’s Arctic. Eastern Beringia, the region connecting Alaska and far eastern Russia via the now-submerged Bering Land Bridge, supported a “steppe-tundra” that was more like a cold, dry grassland than the mossy, shrub-covered terrain we see today. The transition from that steppe-tundra to modern shrub tundra began around 15,000 years ago and happened within decades at local scales.16U.S. Geological Survey. Late Quaternary environmental change in eastern Beringia The earlier cold phase, around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago, coincided with the establishment of the land bridge itself and featured spatially varied herbaceous vegetation sometimes associated with deep active layers of soil above the permafrost.
That history is a reminder that the countries we list as tundra nations reflect a snapshot, not a permanent arrangement. The tundra biome expanded and contracted dramatically with ice ages, and the modern version is relatively young in geological terms. As the current warming trend continues, some researchers expect the tundra to shrink further, replaced by advancing boreal forest from the south and encroached upon by thawing permafrost from below. As vegetation shifts from graminoid-dominated tundra toward shrub-dominated communities in areas where permafrost has degraded, even the character of existing tundra changes.17Ecosystems. Plant Species Composition and Productivity following Permafrost Thaw and Thermokarst in Alaskan Tundra The countries that border the Arctic may still technically contain tundra decades from now, but the tundra they contain could look and function very differently from what exists today.