China is a country which is deficient in forests. China just had some partially data about it's forest resources until the 'Four-Five' Survey, a thorough investigation made on forests in the midseventies. It was the first time for China through the 'Four-Five' Survey to find out the forest resources of the whole country, including the gross area of forests, the area and growing stock of woodland and sparse woods land, and the area of shrubbey. Meanwhile, the geographic distribution of the forests, the structure of dominant species and the age composition were also found out exclusively. Most provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities made the surveys by means of the small-group investigation, surveying all woodlands one by one. Afterwards, every province made macrosampling survey of it's forest resources, named as 'Five-Five' Survey from 1978 to 1981. The results of those two surveiys are almost identical and show clearly that China's forests are so little that it's forest cover rate is far lower than the average level of the world and that of the typical countries in the world.The area of China's forest regions in the early period of history was about several times larger than that of today. The present situation of woods and lumber deficiency was caused by forest fire, destructive lumbering, and especially the overreclaiming and overgrazing over the past thousand years in China's agricultural society. This damaging process has been still continuing.China's natural conditions and the situation of the land are suitable for forestry. China can expand the area of forests by a big margin and rise the growing stock. It is possible for China to expand it's forests to 252 million ha. and rise the growing stock more than 21000 m3, both are more than two times that of the present. Even though, China's forest resources will not meet all the needs of ecological environment protection and the demands of economic growth.