The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Great Barrier Reef - from the air.

The Great Barrier Reef on Australia‘s north-eastern continental shelf is a site of exceptional natural beauty stretching for 2,000 km (1,250 mi) and covering an area of about 350,000 sq. km (135,100 sq. mi), making it larger than the whole of Italy. It is not only the largest UNESCO World Heritage Site on earth but also contains the world‘s most extensive coral reef system.

Composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 island in the whole area located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It can be seen from outer space and is the world’s largest single structure made by living organism.

Beautiful fishes swimming.

Colorful scene under the water.

The reef runs mainly north to south, passing through a number of different climates, accounting for the thousands of different species of marine life that inhabit it. It is made up of 3,400 individual reefs, including nearly 800 fringing reefs, coral islands, continental islands covered in forest, sandbars, and mangrove systems linked by huge turquoise lagoons.

The whole reef is under threat from global warming, with increasing damage to the coral itself, but it is of vital importance to the world’s ecosystem, containing as it does a third of the planet‘s soft coral species, the largest existing green turtle breeding site, 30 different species of mammal, including breeding humpback whales and a large dugong population, as well as sponges, molluscs, 1,500 types of reef fish and 200 species of birds. It also contains fascinating original archaeological sites and is probably the most spectacular marine Wilderness on earth.

Great Barrier Reef stretching over long area.

Beautiful corals.