While it is not the largest World Heritage Area on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef is probably one of the better known.

The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area is 348 000 km2, an area bigger than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined.

It extends from the top of Cape York to just north of Fraser Island, and from the low water mark on the Queensland coast seaward to the outer boundary of the Marine Park, beyond the edge of the continental shelf.

Over 99 per cent of the World Heritage Area includes the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, but it also includes many islands, cays and intertidal areas protected by Queensland Government (State) legislation that are not part of the Commonwealth Marine Park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is the Australian Government agency responsible for managing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management is directly responsible for managing Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef Coast Marine Park (the adjoining State Marine Park) and island national parks.

Facts about the World Heritage Area

As the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef is unique in its size and hence is a significant global resource.

The biodiversity and interconnectedness between species and habitats makes the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area one of the richest and most complex natural ecosystems on earth.

Whilst coral reef, mangrove and seagrass habitats occur elsewhere on the planet, no other World Heritage Area contains such biological diversity.

The Great Barrier Reef was declared a World Heritage Area in 1981, internationally recognised by the World Heritage Committee for its outstanding universal value. It is listed for all four natural criteria¹:

1. be outstanding examples representing the major stages of the earth's evolutionary history
2. be outstanding examples representing significant ongoing geological processes, biological evolution and man's interaction with his natural environment
3. contain unique, rare or superlative natural phenomena, formations or features or areas of exceptional natural beauty, such as superlative examples of the most important ecosystems to man
4. be habitats where populations of rare or endangered species of plants and animals still survive

¹ These refer to the criteria for which the property was listed in 1981 – the wording and numbering of these four criteria has since changed.