World Biomes Map — free printable diagram

What the world biomes map shows

A biome is a very large region defined by its climate and by the communities of plants and animals adapted to live there. This map shows where the major biomes fall across the world, colour-coded, with a key. Because climate is what defines them, biomes appear in broad bands that follow latitude rather than following country borders.

What defines a biome

Climate — chiefly temperature and rainfall

Tropical biomes

Rainforest, savanna

Dry biomes

Hot desert, cold desert

Temperate biomes

Temperate forest, grassland, Mediterranean

Cold biomes

Boreal forest (taiga), tundra, polar

Aquatic biomes

Freshwater and marine

• Biomes run in bands because temperature and rainfall vary with latitude. Reading the map from the equator to a pole crosses those bands in order, which makes a good first exercise.
• Tropical rainforest sits along the equator, where it is warm and wet all year.
• The great deserts cluster near 30° north and south, where dry air descends and little rain falls — the Sahara, the Arabian, the Australian and the Kalahari all sit in those two belts.
• Boreal forest, or taiga, forms a wide band across northern Canada, Scandinavia and Russia, with treeless tundra beyond it towards the Arctic.
• Altitude works like latitude: a tall mountain in the tropics can carry several biomes stacked up its slopes, which is why mountain ranges interrupt the bands on the map.
• A biome is bigger than a habitat and broader than an ecosystem. One savanna biome contains countless individual habitats — a good distinction to check students on.