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Key message Tree species identification analysis of the two images (Luoyang and Hohhot of China) shows that the polygonal area indices extracted by the specific band-constrained polygon relative area (algorithm 3, obtained accuracy was ~ 13% higher than that of other algorithms in WorldView-3 and ~ 2% higher in WorldView-2) can effectively improve the classification accuracy of tree species compared to those with a constant polygon relative area constraint (algorithm 2) and without area constraint (algorithm 1) (equal accuracy was obtained by algorithms 1 and 2 in each data). Context Solving the problem of tree species identification by remote sensing technology is an international issue. Exploring the improvement of tree species recognition accuracy through multiple methods is currently widely attempted. A previous study has indicated that mining the differential information of various tree species in images using area differences of the polygons formed by tree species spectral curves and creating the polygon area index can improve tree species recognition accuracy. However, this study only created two such indices. Thus, a general model was developed to extract more potential polygon area indices and help tree species classification. However, the improvement of this model using a constant and a specific band to constrain the relative area of polygons still needs to be fully studied. Aims To obtain new algorithms for extracting polygon area indices that can mine the differential information of tree species and determine the index that is the most effective for tree species classification. Methods By unconstraining the area of polygons and constraining the relative area of polygons with constant and specific bands, three formulations of polygon area indices were created. Polygon area indices were extracted from WorldView-3 and WorldView-2 imagery based on three algorithms and combined with textures and spectral bands to form three feature sets. Random forest was used to classify images and rank the importance of features in the feature sets, and the effectiveness of the polygon area indices extracted by each algorithm in tree species recognition was analysed in accordance with their performance in the classifications. Results The proportion of polygon area index in the optimal feature sets ranged from 36.4 to 63.1%. The polygon area indices extracted with constant constrained polygon relative area and those without area constraint have minimal effect on tree species classification accuracy. Meanwhile, the polygon area indices extracted by the algorithm of specific band-constrained polygon relative area could remarkably improve tree species recognition accuracy (compared with spectral bands, WorldView-3 and WorldView-2 improved by 9.69% and 4.19%, respectively). Conclusion The experiments confirmed that polygon area indices are beneficial for tree species classification, and polygon area indices extracted by specific band-constrained polygon relative area play an important role in tree species identification.