Types of Oak Wood: Red and White Oak Species Compared

Oak wood comes in two types that matter to anyone buying or identifying it: the red oak group and the white oak group. The Nashville Tree Conservation Corps counts about 500 oak species worldwide and about 90 native to America, but the USDA Wood Handbook explains why the lumber trade does not bother with most of those names: sawn red oak cannot be separated by species from the wood alone, so boards are sold simply as red oak or white oak.

The Handbook's principal species are:

• Red oak group - northern red (Quercus rubra), scarlet, Shumard, pin, Nuttall, black, southern red, cherrybark, water, laurel and willow oak. Most red oak comes from the eastern states.
• White oak group - white (Q. alba), chestnut, post, overcup, swamp chestnut, bur, chinkapin and swamp white oak, plus Oregon white oak (Q. garryana), the most important western species. White oak lumber comes chiefly from the South, South Atlantic and Central states.

Live oak is a white-group tree the Handbook covers separately; its wood is extremely heavy (specific gravity 0.88 at 12% moisture in Table 5-3b).

Side hardness at 12% moisture, from Wood Handbook Table 5-3b. Higher numbers resist dents better.

• Red oak group: southern red 1,060 lbf; black 1,210; laurel 1,210; water 1,190; northern red 1,290; scarlet 1,400; willow 1,460; cherrybark 1,480; pin 1,510.
• White oak group: chestnut 1,130; overcup 1,190; swamp chestnut 1,240; white 1,360; post 1,360; bur 1,370; swamp white 1,620.

Two things stand out. First, "white oak is harder than red oak" is only true on average: pin and cherrybark oak (red group) out-score white oak itself. Second, the spread inside each group is wider than the gap between the two headline species, which is one more reason the lumber trade sells by group.

The Wood Handbook gives the differences that matter in use:

• Color. Red oak heartwood is brown with a tinge of red; white oak heartwood is generally grayish brown. Sapwood of both is nearly white and 1 to 2 in. wide.
• Pores. White oak heartwood pores are usually plugged with tyloses, which makes the wood nearly impenetrable to liquids and suitable for tight barrels. Red oak generally lacks tyloses, so its open pores rule it out for tight cooperage unless the barrel is lined.
• Decay. White oak heartwood has good decay resistance; red oak ties, posts and mine timbers need preservative treatment.
• Weight. White oak is somewhat heavier than red oak.
• Quartersawn figure. Quartersawn oak of either group shows broad, conspicuous rays, the ray fleck prized in Arts and Crafts furniture.

Oak City Customs, a furniture maker, calls red oak the most common furniture wood in the country and prices white oak in a higher tier. See our full red oak and white oak pages for end-grain photos.

Both groups. The Handbook lists furniture, flooring and millwork among the main uses of red oak lumber, and furniture, flooring, doors and millwork for white oak. In practice the choice follows the job:

• Indoor furniture, cabinets and trim - red oak is the common, lower-cost choice (Oak City Customs).
• Outdoor furniture, boat parts and anything wet - white oak, for its decay-resistant, tyloses-filled heartwood (Wood Handbook; Oak City Customs also recommends it outdoors).
• Mission and Arts and Crafts pieces - quartersawn white oak for the ray fleck.

For a wider comparison across species, see types of hardwood for furniture.

If you have a board, look at the end grain with a 10x lens after a clean knife cut. The Wood Handbook's test is the pores in the latewood and the tyloses: red oak pores are open, white oak pores look plugged and glassy. A quick shop version of the same test is to blow through a short length of red oak end to end, which our red oak page describes. You will not get further than the group: the Handbook says red oak lumber cannot be separated by species from the wood alone.

If you have a tree, go to the leaf. Bristle-tipped lobes mean the red group; rounded lobes without bristles mean the white group. Our oak leaf identification page has the species details and pin oak leaf identification covers pin oak, a red oak widely planted in yards and along streets.

WoodLens reads end grain and leaves from a photo.

This page was drafted with AI help, and every figure was checked line by line against the sources listed.