As the necessity of forest conservation and management has been increased, various forest studies using LIDAR data have been actively performed. These studies often utilize the tree height as an important parameter to measure the forest quantitatively. This study thus attempt to apply two representative methods to estimate tree height from airborne LIDAR data and compare the results. The first method based on the detection of the individual trees using a local maximum filter estimates the number of trees, the position and heights of the individual trees, and the mean tree height. The other method estimates the maximum and mean tree height, and the crown mean height for each grid cell or the entire area from the canopy height model (CHM) and height histogram. In comparison with the field measurements, 76.6% of the individual trees are detected correctly; and the estimated heights of all trees and only conifer trees show the RMSE of 1.91m and 0.75m, respectively. The tree mean heights estimated from CHM retain about 1~2m RMSE, and the histogram method underestimates the tree mean height with about 0.6m. For more accurate derivation of diverse forest information, we should select and integrate the complimentary methods appropriate to the tree types and estimation parameters.