Watermelon Pond Primitive Campsites Goethe State Forest Camping

The Florida state forest system consists of 38 state forests and one working ranch managed by the Florida Forest Service (FFS), a division of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Together they cover more than 1,236,000 acres (500,000 ha) in 39 of Florida's 67 counties. The forests are managed for multiple uses such as timber, outdoor recreation, habitat for game and nongame wildlife, and the protection of water resources and archaeological and historical sites. Most of the forests are also run as wildlife management areas under a cooperative agreement with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and they offer hiking, camping, paddling and designated off-highway vehicle trails.
Florida's state forests and state parks began as a single program. In 1935 the Legislature authorized the Florida Board of Forestry to manage forests and parks that the federal government had acquired and turned over to the state, and each tract was assigned to one system or the other by its "highest use": land suited to timber and lacking unusual scenic, historic or botanical value went to forestry. The first state forest, Pine Log State Forest, was bought from the Henderson-Waits Lumber Company in 1936, and Cary State Forest followed in 1937. Three more began as federal land-use and resettlement projects of the 1930s, Blackwater River, Welaka and Withlacoochee, and came to the state by lease or deed between 1938 and 1958. Most of the system is far younger. Purchases in almost every year from 1987 to 2009, funded through the Conservation and Recreation Lands Trust Fund and the Preservation 2000 program, brought the number of state forests to 35, and later land has come through Florida Forever. Of the 39 units in this list, 29 were first acquired after 1989. The newest, Sandy Creek State Forest in Bay County, was bought in 2025.
This list covers all 38 state forests managed as of 2026, as well as Babcock Ranch Preserve, a Florida Heritage Working Ranch that the FFS has managed alongside them since 2016. The units range in size from Blackwater River, at more than 226,000 acres the largest state forest in Florida, to the 58-acre Holopaw State Forest. For each forest the table gives the year the state first acquired it, its counties, its area, the streams and lakes on or beside it, and a short description of its landscape and recreation.

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