More than 40% of forests in Japan are artificial, and forest stocks have increased. However, many artificial forests have been abandoned, particularly those belonging to owners of small private forests. The abandonment of forest management been partially attributed to aging of the owners as well as to economic changes surrounding forestry. In this paper, we focus on the geographical conditions of private forests as factors in abandonment. We studied the village of Nishiawakura-son in Okayama Prefecture. Forests occupy 95% of the area of this village. Forests are classified by ownership into private forests (51% of total forest area), public forests (28%), company forests (17%) and others. Of 284 owners, 248 own less than 10 ha of forest. We studied the history of forestry in the village, analyzed the spatial characteristics of the small forests with a geographic information system (GIS) and interviewed 27 small private forest owners. The results suggest the following. In general, private forests are located at lower altitudes than forests of the other ownership categories because most of these forests were used as common forests for villagers until they were divided into private holdings in the 1940s. However, smaller private woods were often located far from usable roads. This suggests that small private owners cannot easily access their forests, even though the forests are located at lower altitudes that should be convenient for forest management. Owners of forests close to roads were more likely to manage their forests well. The owners who abandoned forest management reported various reasons for abandonment, some of which were related to the distance of their forests from roads. However, several owners abandoned forest management, regardless of the distance from a road. These owners did not have forest management experience and could not manage their forests, even if the forests were easily accessible. We conclude that geographical factors dating from former usage affect present-day forest management, although geographical factors have not directly lead to the abandonment of forest management. JEL classification: Q23