Birch and poplar are the two cheapest paint-grade hardwoods in most North American lumberyards, and both are common as plywood faces. In the lumber trade “poplar” almost always means yellow-poplar (tulip-poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera), which is not a true poplar at all but a magnolia relative. This page compares it with yellow birch using Wood Handbook data.
Birch vs Poplar: the numbers
| Property | Yellow birch | Yellow-poplar |
|---|---|---|
| Janka side hardness, 12% MC | 1,260 lbf | 540 lbf |
| Density at 12% MC | 43.4 lb/ft³ | 29.4 lb/ft³ |
| Weight per board foot | 3.61 lb | 2.45 lb |
| Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC | 16,600 psi | 10,100 psi |
| Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC | 2.01 million psi | 1.58 million psi |
| Crushing strength parallel to grain | 8,170 psi | 5,540 psi |
| Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential | 9.5% | 8.2% |
| Shrinkage, radial | 7.3% | 4.6% |
| Shrinkage, volumetric | 16.8% | 12.7% |
| Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency) | 1.3 | 1.78 |
| Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5) | 0.338% | 0.289% |
| Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1) | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant |
What the numbers mean
- Hardness: Yellow birch is 133% harder than Yellow-poplar (1,260 against 540 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
- Weight: Yellow birch is 48% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 14.4 lb in yellow birch and 9.8 lb in yellow-poplar at 12% moisture content.
- Strength and stiffness: Yellow birch is 64% stronger in bending and 27% stiffer. Stiffness is what decides how much a shelf of the same size sags under the same load.
- Movement: a flatsawn board 10 in wide that goes from 6% to 12% moisture content (a dry winter to a humid summer indoors) swells about 0.203 in (3/16 in) in yellow birch and 0.173 in (3/16 in) in yellow-poplar, from Handbook Eq. 13-2 and the Table 13-5 coefficients. Allow for this in table tops, panels and floors.
- Decay resistance of the heartwood: Yellow birch: slightly or nonresistant; Yellow-poplar: slightly or nonresistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
Appearance, working and what to watch for
The numbers show the main point: birch is a hard, heavy furniture wood, and yellow-poplar is a light, soft one. Yellow-poplar heartwood is yellowish brown, often streaked with green, purple, black, blue or red; the Handbook notes these colours do not affect its properties, but they make it a poor choice for a clear finish where colour matters. Its sapwood, sold as whitewood, is white. Birch is more uniform: light reddish brown heartwood and nearly white sapwood, sometimes with a soft curl.
Yellow-poplar is very easy to machine, nails without splitting and holds paint well, which is why it is the standard wood for painted trim, drawer sides and cabinet face frames. It dents easily, though. Birch is harder to work but still machines cleanly, and takes stain better than poplar, although it can blotch under pigment stain; a washcoat or gel stain helps. Both are in the slightly or nonresistant decay class and are indoor woods.
Painting either wood
For a smooth painted finish, sand both woods to 150 or 180 grit; going finer can burnish birch and reduce adhesion. Yellow-poplar sometimes raises a fuzzy grain after the first coat of water-based primer, so sand lightly after priming. Birch end grain absorbs more primer than its faces; a second coat on the ends evens the sheen. Both woods are stable enough for painted cabinet doors when the panels float in their frames.
Which to choose: verdict by use
| Use | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Painted trim and mouldings | Poplar | Cheap, light, easy to mill and paint. |
| Painted cabinet doors and face frames | Either | Poplar is cheaper; birch resists dents better. |
| Stained or clear-finished furniture | Birch | More even colour; poplar streaks show through. |
| Table tops, chairs and anything that takes knocks | Birch | More than twice as hard and much tougher. |
| Drawer sides and secondary wood | Poplar | Light, stable enough, inexpensive. |
| Plywood for cabinet boxes | Birch | Harder face veneer that resists wear. |
Frequently asked questions
Is birch harder than poplar?
Much harder. Yellow birch has 1,260 lbf of Janka hardness against 540 lbf for yellow-poplar in the Wood Handbook, about 2.3 times as hard.
Is poplar good for painting?
Yes. It is fine-textured, light and holds paint well, which is why it is the usual paint-grade hardwood. The green and purple streaks disappear under primer.
Is poplar a hardwood?
Yes, botanically. Yellow-poplar is a broadleaved tree, but at 540 lbf it is softer than some softwoods, such as longleaf pine.
Sources and method
All property values are read from our parsed copy of the USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material (FPL-GTR-190, 2010), a US Government publication in the public domain, the same data as the wood species database. The percentages and the board examples above are our arithmetic on those values. The values describe small, clear, straight-grained specimens: real boards with knots or sloping grain differ, and structural lumber is sized from graded design values in your local building code, not from this table.
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material. General Technical Report FPL-GTR-190, 2010. Chapter 2 (species descriptions), Chapter 4 (Tables 4-3, 4-4 shrinkage; Eq. 4-7, 4-9, 4-12 density), Chapter 5 (Tables 5-3b, 5-5b strength and hardness), Chapter 13 (Table 13-5 dimensional change coefficients), Chapter 14 (Table 14-1 decay resistance)
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook, 2021 edition (FPL-GTR-282)
Last reviewed: 24 October 2026. How we build and check our data: methodology and corrections. Spotted an error? Please let us know.