The world's tallest living tree is a coastal or California redwood; the world's largest, by trunk volume, is a giant redwood.
According to Wikipedia, the redwoods are members of a subfamily with the scientific name Sequoioidae. There are three genera in this subfamily:
| • | Sequoia sempervirens – native to coastal California and Oregon, a.k.a. coast(al) redwood or California redwood |
| • | Sequoiadendron giganteum – native to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, a.k.a. giant sequoia or giant redwood |
| • | Metasequoia glyptostroboides – native to China, a.k.a. dawn redwood |
The world's tallest living tree is a coastal redwood in Redwood National Park, California, which is 116 metres (381 feet) high. It has a name: Hyperion.
The world's largest known living single–stem tree (by trunk volume), and arguably its most famous, is the General Sherman – a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park. Its trunk volume (i.e. ignoring wood in its branches) is just under 1,500 cubic metres; but it's only (only!) 83.8 metres (274.9 feet) tall.
The tallest giant redwood is in Sequoia National Forest, also in California: 96 metres (314 feet) high. According to Wikipedia, the dawn redwood can be up to 45 metres tall.
Wikipedia compares the height of the largest giant redwoods to that of a 26–storey building.
There are, however, other trees that are taller than the tallest giant redwood. A south Tibetan cypress in Yarlung Zangbo National Nature Reserve, in Tibet, is 102 metres; a Sitka spruce in Redwood National Park is 100.2 metres; a coast douglas–fir in Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon, is 99.5 metres; a yellow meranti in Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah (Borneo) is 97.6 metres; and a mountain ash in the Arve valley, Tasmania (Australia) is 96 metres.
The tallest recorded tree historically was a mountain ash at the Black Spur in Victoria (Australia) which fell (or was found fallen?) in 1865 and was measured at 483 feet (147.2 metres) by a Mr. Gustav Klein, after whom it was named the G. Klein Tree. Wikipedia lists six other historical trees which were claimed to have been taller than the Hyperion coastal redwood: two mountain ashes and four douglas–firs.
Wikipedia, on its List of superlative trees page, lists them in the following categories:
| • | Tallest |
| • | Tallest historically |
| • | Stoutest (trunk circumference, measured at breast height) |
| • | Largest (trunk volume) |
| • | Broadest (widest spread of limbs) |
| • | Oldest |
| • | Deepest and longest roots |
| • | Thickest limbs |
| • | Thickest bark |
Of these, we will mention just one category before ending: the world's oldest measured and verified tree is a Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in Inyo County, California, which is 4,856 years old and has been named, not surprisingly, Methuselah.
© Haydn Thompson 2025