This study confirmed the usefulness of short wavelength infrared (SWIR) in the discrimination and classification of evergreen forest types. A forested area near Hisayama and Sasaguri in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, served as the study area. Warm-temperate forest vegetation dominates the study site vegetation. Coniferous plantation forest, natural broad-leaved forest, and bamboo forest were analyzed using LANDSAT5/TM and SPOT4/HRVIR remote sensing data. Samples were extracted for the three forest types, and reflectance factors were compared for each band. Kappa coefficients of various band combinations were also compared by classification accuracy. For the LANDSAT5/TM data observed in April, October, and November, Bands 5 and 7 showed significant differences between bamboo, broad-leaved, and coniferous forests. The same significant difference was not recognized in the visible or near-infrared regions. Classification accuracy, determined by supervised classification, indicated distinct improvements in band combinations with SWIR, as compared to those without SWIR. Similar results were found for both LANDSAT5/TM and SPOT4/HRVIR data. This study identified obvious advantages in using SWIR data in forest-type discrimination and classification.