taiga

The vast belt of boreal coniferous forest that encircles the Northern Hemisphere — spruce, fir, larch, and pine stretching from Scandinavia across Siberia and from Alaska across Canada. The taiga is the largest terrestrial biome on earth, and its interior is among the least populated landscapes outside the polar ice. Winters are long and brutal; summers are brief, warm, and plagued by insects. The word names the immensity.