
Sierra Leone notable tree
Cotton Tree
Christian Trede · CC BY-SA 2.0 de
9% trees around it and 15 species recorded.
- trees within 3 km9%
- wild within 10 km81%
- species recorded15
The forest around
9% trees.
Read like the rings of a cut trunk: from the centre out, the land within 1, 3, 6 and 10 km, coloured by what covers it.
Trees, ring by ring
- 0–1 km3%
- 1–3 km9%
- 3–6 km12%
- 6–10 km17%
What covers the land (1–3 km)
- Trees9%
- Mangroves0%
- Shrubland0%
- Grassland1%
- Wetland0%
- Water42%
- Bare ground0%
- Built-up46%
ESA WorldCover 2021 (10 m, from Sentinel satellites), sampled every 120 m. A clearing, a road or a lake counts as what it is.
Who lives here
15 species recorded.
The plants, fungi, birds and mammals people have recorded here most often.









CR
Open records within 2 km (GBIF, licensed for any use). Busy places are better recorded than remote ones.
In numbers
The forest, measured.
Our own rating, from open data only: tree cover (40 points), wildness (20), species recorded (30) and protection or heritage (10).
- 9%Treesof the land within 3 km
- 81%Wildno towns or farmland within 10 km
- 15Speciesrecorded more than once within 2 km
When to walk
Best for walking from December to February.
How good each month is for a walk: mild days and little rain make the bar taller.
- Jan22°1 mm
- Feb23°2 mm
- Mar24°2 mm
- Apr25°25 mm
- May25°136 mm
- Jun24°399 mm
- Jul24°644 mm
- Aug24°699 mm
- Sep24°400 mm
- Oct24°187 mm
- Nov24°71 mm
- Dec23°4 mm
- Bar: walking comfort; the number on top is the average maximum.
- Below: average minimum (NASA, 1991–2020).
- Rain: monthly total.
The place
Cotton Tree.
Historically important kapok tree and landmark in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Cotton Tree is a notable tree in Sierra Leone.
Seen from space, 9% of the land within 3 km is trees, and 81% of the land within 10 km has no towns or farmland.
15 species have been recorded around it: 5 plants, 0 fungi, 10 birds and 0 mammals.
The most recorded plants are: Longstamen rice, Littlebell and Vigna gracilis.
The best time to walk is from December to February.

Get there and walk
- Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuarycampsite · 8.1 km · 3 within 10 km
- Freetown Innplace to stay · 0.4 km · 93 within 10 km
- Freetownnearest town · 0.0 km in a straight line
- Lungi International Airport (FNA)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 15 km in a straight line
Plan the visit
A guided walk, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The forest and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the place, with the trails, notable trees, picnic sites and huts that OpenStreetMap shows.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 1named and notable trees within 6 kmThe Cotton Tree
- 1shelters and huts within 6 km
- 6viewpoints within 5 kmSea Side View POW, 75A Leicester Road, marcul and 3 more
- 1visitor centres within 6 kmNational Tourist Board
- 13car parks within 3 km
- 3campsites within 10 kmTacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Scout Camp, Grafton Scout Camp Site
- 93places to stay within 10 kmFreetown Inn, Sierra International Hotel, Hedjazi Hotel and 90 more
- 43restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- marked trails within 5 km
- picnic sites within 4 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
Around Cotton Tree.
The mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls and canyons around this forest, the viewpoints above it, the birds and the night sky, in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The forest, as people saw it.
Other forests nearby.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q602200) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Land cover | ESA WorldCover 10 m 2021 v200 · © ESA WorldCover project / Copernicus Sentinel data · CC BY 4.0 |
| Species | 115 open records within 2 km (GBIF, CC0 and CC BY 4.0 only) |
| See these records | gbif.org |
| Names and photos | Wikidata (CC0); GBIF Backbone Taxonomy · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Temperature and rain | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Coastya, Lakeyas, Birdyas, Cascadyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.






