Distribution: The TBDF occurs in three major, disjunct expressions in western and central Europe; eastern Asia, including Korea and Japan; and eastern North America.

- In Europe, a species-poor forest reflects widespread extinctions during the Pleistocene. Oaks, beeches, and elms dominate. Most of the forest was cleared for agriculture, with remnants surviving only in some royal hunting preserves.
- The TBDF of China is known primarily from the fossil record; intensive agriculture has caused this region to be cleared of natural vegetation for at least 4,000 years. Japan has a largely artificial forest, but in the mountains of Korea the forest is more or less intact and fall foliage is reminiscent of New England's.
- Almost all the forests of eastern North America are second growth, but they preserve the world's greatest diversity of TBDF flora and fauna. This is especially true of the unglaciated Appalachian Plateau of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and western North Carolina and Virginia. The Great Smoky Mountains have been designated a world biosphere reserve to help protect the rich assortment of species.

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