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Temperate rainforests are rainforests with coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain.
Temperate rainforests occur in oceanic moist regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rainforests of North American Pacific Northwest as well as the Appalachian temperate rainforest in the Appalachian region of the United States; the Valdivian temperate rainforests of southwestern South America; the rainforests of New Zealand and southeastern Australia; northwest Europe (small pockets in Great Britain and larger areas in Ireland, southern Norway, northern Iberia and Brittany); southern Japan; the Black Sea–Caspian Sea region from the southeasternmost coastal zone of the Bulgarian coast, through Turkey, to Georgia, and northern Iran.
The moist conditions of temperate rainforests generally support an understory of mosses, ferns and some shrubs and berries. Temperate rainforests can be temperate coniferous forests or temperate broadleaf and mixed forests.