Regional similarities of forest resources and socio-economic structures in the EU member states

Due to various policy processes in Europe focusing on rural and regional development issues, the importance of information on forest resources and socio-economic development at the regional level has increased significantly. The purpose of the study was to analyse regional similarities of forest resources and socio-economic structures in the EU member countries to improve the comparability of regions for the studies where forest resources’ contribution to regional development is investigated. The analysis focused on two examples with the regions in Forest dominant (Finland and Sweden) and East–Mediterranean–Atlantic (Greece, Portugal and Ireland) country groups. The presented example demonstrates how the EU regions could be divided more accurately if the classification was modified on the basis of the purpose of the classification. However, a more accurate division of regions based on regional characteristics in forestry and socio-economics would be improved substantially with better data quality and availability.