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A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as , , or . The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above the river. Defined as long and narrow forest vegetation associated with rivers, gallery forests are structurally and floristically heterogeneous.
The habitats of these forests differ from the surrounding landscapes because they are, for example, more nutrient-rich or moister and/or there is less chance of fires. The forests are sometimes only a few meters wide, because they depend on the water they lie along.
Gallery forests have shrunk in extent worldwide as a result of human activities, including domestic livestock's preventing tree seedling establishment and the construction of and causing flooding or interfering with natural stream flow. In addition to these disturbances, gallery forests are also threatened by many of the same processes that threaten savannas. Riparian zones offer protection from fire and stress from .
The name "gallery" comes from an older sense of that word meaning a narrow passageway; compare with "mine gallery". They are clearly identified in the landscape by sticking to the course of the river, forming a corridor completely different from the rest of the vegetation, in color and height.Heinrich Walter, Siegmar-W. Breckle: Vegetation und Klimazonen. 7. Auflage. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1999, .
Gallery forests also exist along the valleys of Omaruru River, Swakop and Kuiseb in the Central Namibia. Here the riverbeds are filled with a thick layer of sand, through which groundwater flows even when there is no rain. Gallery forest in cultivated land can be found on waterbodies in pasture and farmland (e.g. alluvial forest) as well as on terrain levels (hillside forests in Europe), i.e. plots of land that are not suitable for farming. It is often the small forest as a private economic wood reserve, or unusable or inaccessible fallow land as a natural forest residue. Gallery forests have persisted in North America in prairie-dominated areas along rivers and streams. In dry to temperate zones, the presence of water is not the only factor that determines species. Grassland fires, even where they are rare, have had a high selective pressure value against woody vegetation.C.-P. Hutter, K. Blessing, U. Kozina: Wälder, Hecken und Gehölze. Weitbrecht Verlag, Stuttgart 1995, .
Early hominin species such as Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis and Homo rudolfensis have inhabited gallery forests.
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