Biggest Tree in the World: 5 Stunning General Sherman Facts

The biggest trees on Earth are dwarfed by General Sherman, a massive Sequoia tree located in the United States and ranked the biggest tree in the world.

Measured by volume, General Sherman has outgrown them all.

It has gained this title against some very big competitors, but there may be some facts you might not know about this giant tree. The following stunning General Sherman facts might surprise you.¹

We’ve also added 30 more of the biggest tree in the world runnerup’s in size, just for comparison.

Related Reading: How Many Trees Are in the World?

The Biggest Tree in the World: General Sherman (5 Stunning General Sherman Facts)

Even though General Sherman is now the biggest tree in the world, historically, there have been two other giant sequoia trees at the time by volume that have been bigger,⁵ but both of them met an untimely end, one in 1905 and the other in the mid-1940s.

The first was measured as actually being twice as big (volumetric) as the General.

It was a California redwood called the Lindsey Creek Tree in Fieldbrook, and its metric volume was measured at 90,000 cubic feet and weighed nearly 3,700 tons.

What brought it down was a ferocious storm in 1905 that battered it with 120 mph winds that finally toppled it to the ground. The Crannell Creek Giant, though not as gargantuan, was still estimated to be between 15-25% bigger than General Sherman.

It met its end in the 1940s when it was subjected to loggers who cut it down. If these two redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens) were alive today they would surely receive even more visitors than those tourists visiting the General Sherman tree in the Giant Forest.

Yet here are 5 facts about what makes the General Sherman tree unique:

1. The bark on the trunk in some places is 2 feet thick.
2. The seeds can remain locked away from daylight in the cones for 20 years.
3. General Sherman’s sap contains tannic acid that protects against parasites and fungal rot.
4. A fur trapper in 1879, James Wolverton, gave this ancient tree its name after serving under General William Tecumseh Sherman in the American Civil War.
5. The General Sherman tree is just 13 feet shorter than the Capitol Building.

General Sherman Tree (More Statistics About General Sherman Tree: The Biggest Tree in the World)

The General Sherman tree is a giant sequoia tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum) located in California’s Sequoia National Park in a large sequoia grove section appropriately called Giant Forest. It has been dated as being between 2,200 and 2,700 years old.⁹

An impressive number, but that amazingly doesn’t make it one of the oldest trees in the world. That accolade belongs to another.

Now, what makes General Sherman the biggest tree in the world is not that it is the tallest tree on the planet or the widest, but that it is both.

By sheer volume, it snatches the title, standing at 275 feet tall at its apex with a girth at the base of over 36 feet.

That diameter narrows to about 17.5 feet the higher the trunk ascends but even at 60 feet, the trunk is wider than most other trees.

The branches, some with a circumference of nearly 7 feet, start to spread out from 130 feet from the ground and this, undoubtedly, has aided in its longevity.

Tourist flock from all around the globe to marvel at the General Sherman tree in winter and summer, leaving with photos as proof that they have seen the biggest tree in the world.

The Oldest Tree in the World: Methuselah Tree

Growing not too far from General Sherman in the Inyo National Forest in the Sierra Nevadas grows the oldest tree in the world.

Named after the oldest man in the Bible, the Methuselah Tree is recorded to be nearly 5,000 years old.

It is a bristlecone pine tree from the Pinaceae family of trees, the Pinus longaev, and is classed as the oldest living organism on earth.²

It has managed to reach this monumental age because Bristlecone pine has a very dense wood that makes it incredibly resistant to insects, pests, and fungi, and it is accustomed to thriving in extremely harsh conditions.

Long may it continue to grow old gracefully.

The Oldest Tree in Asia: Cypress of Abarqu (Sarv-E Abarkuh)

Situated in the Yazd Province in Iran, the Cypress of Abarqu (Cupressus sempervirens) is a revered natural monument that is estimated to be between 4,000- 5,000 years old.¹⁰

It has a height of 82 feet and a width of nearly 38 feet at its base and is a major tourist attraction.

Although not as ancient as Methuselah, it is nevertheless an impressive specimen and deserves the protection from the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran who are proud to have in their country a tree that has been around for millennia.

The Stoutest Trunk in the World: Árbol Del Tule

The Árbol Del Tule doesn’t hold the title of the biggest tree in the world, but it does have the record for the stoutest tree trunk at 46.1 feet wide.

It’s a Montezuma Cypress tree (Taxodium mucronatum) seen in Santa Maria del Tule, a tiny town in Mexico where the villagers are keen to show off their centerpiece that, at 116 feet tall, isn’t a towering giant.

But what it lacks in height is definitely made up for in a world record-holding width. A different world record is held on the other side of the planet in a remote area of Bangalore, India.

The World’s Largest Canopy: Thimmamma Marrimanu

Thimmamma Marrimanu is a banyan tree whose canopy has spread over an incredible 5 acres – and it is still growing.³

What prevents this 550-year-old tree from falling over under the increasing size and weight of the canopy are the roots, or more accurately the ‘prop roots’.

As a survival mechanism, the tree instinctively realizes when extra support is needed and provides that stability from the branches above that descend and grow above ground.

Being a living organism, Thimmamma Marrimanu’s canopy is still growing and, because the banyan tree is the national tree of India, it is well tended to and will probably be around for another 1,000 years.

Some of the Biggest Jungles in the World

Climate change is a global problem and jungles play a major role in combatting greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions.

The bigger the jungle, the bigger the carbon sequestration, and the better the fight against climate erosion.

Hundreds of jungles across the planet face the threat of deforestation on a regular basis but are trying to fight back by outgrowing the problem.

Below are some of the biggest jungles in the world.

There are hundreds of jungles in the world, hosting millions of trees with an incredible variety of species that have lived for generations. These jungles are classed as the lungs of the earth as without them the air that we take for granted may not be as clean and easy to breathe as we need for our own survival.

The World’s Oldest Clonal Trees: Pando

If you thought cloning was impossible, think again. In Fishlake National Forest, Utah lies the world’s oldest living organism which has been cloning itself for 80,000 years, yet the oldest tree in this forest is only 130 years old.

The trees, quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides),⁴ cover an area of 108 acres and are classed as clonal trees because each and every one of them is connected to the exact same system of roots that connects each tree to the same water and nutrient source.

When one tree dies, another grows in its place from stems sprouted from the intricate root system, and a process called suckering takes place where the genetically identical tree is formed. This tree will not only be a replica of the recently departed one but to everyone before it, and to every other tree in the forest.

Because of this incredible feature, Pando is classed as one interconnected organism that scientists have dated as being 14,000 years old, while others estimate that its true existence is closer to 80,000 years.

This phenomenon of being one single structure reveals that Pando can be classed as the biggest tree in the world even though it is a colony comprised of thousands of smaller trees, rather than one giant behemoth. There are other clonal forests in the world in Iceland, the United Kingdom, Tasmania, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, but Pando is the largest, and the oldest.

Starting from a mere seed centuries ago, its existence, unfortunately, may well be under threat from overgrazing by cattle and deer that are damaging the delicate ecosystem. Over the last 20 years, they have been consuming thousands of new stems before they can mature, and faster than they can regrow.

Some intervention needs to occur before all the new stems are eradicated and the older trees die off without a new clone to replace them.

Top Thirty Largest Sequoias by Volume After General Sherman

It has been clearly established that the title of the biggest tree in the world rests on the crown of General Sherman at 52,508 cubic feet.

Incredibly, it isn’t just a titan among tiny saplings, but a giant among giants.

(Image: National Park Service¹⁵)

Here are 30 other sequoia trees that are equally as magnificent and, even though they may not be number one, still outperform millions of other trees in the world.