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Distribution

The genus Quercus is native to the Northern Hemisphere and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cool temperate to tropical latitudes in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and North Africa. North America has the largest number of oak species, with approximately 160 species in Mexico, of which 109 are endemic, and about 90 in the United States. The second greatest area of oak diversity is China, with approximately 100 species.

In the Americas, Quercus is widespread from Vancouver and Nova Scotia in the south of Canada, south to Mexico and across the whole of the eastern United States. It is present in a small area of the west of Cuba; in Mesoamerica it occurs mainly above 1000 metres. The genus crossed the isthmus of Panama when the northern and southern continents came together and is present as one species, Q. humboldtii, above 1000 metres in Colombia. The oaks of North America are of many sections (Protobalanus, Lobatae, Ponticae, Quercus, and Virentes) along with related genera such as Notholithocarpus.

In the Old World, oaks of section Quercus extend across the whole of Europe including European Russia apart from the far north, and north Africa (north of the Sahara) from Morocco to Libya. In Mediterranean Europe, they are joined by oaks of the sections Cerris and Ilex, which extend across Turkey, the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while section Ponticae is endemic to the western Caucasus in Turkey and Georgia. Oaks of section Cyclobalanopsis extend in a narrow belt along the Himalayas to cover mainland and island Southeast Asia as far as Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Palawan. Finally, oaks of multiple sections (Cyclobalanopsis, Ilex, Cerris, Quercus and related genera like Lithocarpus and Castanopsis) extend across east Asia including China, Korea, and Japan.