The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Nature Sanctuaries in South America
5 places in 3 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries in South America are Canaima National Park (Venezuela), Iguazú National Park (Argentina) and Ischigualasto Provincial Park (Argentina). The list covers 5 UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries in 3 countries. Argentina has the most, with 3. Last updated 14 October 2026.
South America's World Heritage sanctuaries were chosen as much for what lies beneath them as on the surface. Ancient sandstone plateaus, river basalts, Triassic sediments and volcanic islands expose chapters of Earth's history found nowhere else, often with life that evolved in isolation.
Canaima National Park in Venezuela has tepui summits so isolated they host species seen nowhere else, and Angel Falls spills from the rim of one of them. Iguazú National Park keeps a subtropical Atlantic forest around the long horseshoe of falls on the Argentine side. Ischigualasto Provincial Park, the Valley of the Moon, holds some of the oldest known dinosaur fossils, including Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus. Galápagos National Park protects giant tortoises, marine iguanas and the finches that helped Darwin's theory take shape. Talampaya National Park, its neighbour and partner in the same UNESCO listing as Ischigualasto, has red sandstone walls carved by wind and ancient rock art.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canaima National Park | National park | Venezuela | ✓ |
| 2 | Iguazú National Park | National park | Argentina | ✓ |
| 3 | Ischigualasto Provincial Park | Protected area | Argentina | ✓ |
| 4 | Galápagos National Park | National park | Ecuador | ✓ |
| 5 | Talampaya National Park | National park | Argentina | ✓ |
01 Canaima National Park
Parque Nacional Canaima
Venezuela5.319° N 61.795° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Jrafave from Pixabay Canaima National Park covers about 30,000 square kilometres of south-eastern Venezuela, stretching to the borders with Brazil and Guyana and taking in most of the Gran Sabana. It is one of the largest national parks in the world, roughly the size of Belgium.
Did you know? Angel Falls takes its name from American pilot Jimmie Angel, who flew over it in 1933 and crash-landed his plane on top of Auyán-tepui in 1937.
02 Iguazú National Park
Parque Nacional Iguazú
Argentina · 34.7 km from Foz do Iguaçu25.705° S 54.248° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by AndreaRochas from Pixabay Argentina created Iguazú National Park in 1934 to protect the greater part of the Iguazú Falls and the subtropical forest around them, and UNESCO listed it in 1984, together with its Brazilian counterpart across the river. The park covers 677 square kilometres of the far north of Misiones province.
Did you know? On 9 June 2014 the falls carried a record flow of about 45,700 cubic metres per second, more than five times Niagara's highest recorded flow.
03 Ischigualasto Provincial Park
Argentina30.117° S 67.912° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
M.Bustos · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ischigualasto is a dry basin in northeastern San Juan province where the ground itself reads like a book of the Late Triassic. Here, in rocks laid down roughly 231 to 226 million years ago, lie some of the earliest dinosaurs known anywhere — and around them a landscape so stripped and strange that by the 1940s it was already being called the Valle de la Luna, the Valley of the Moon.
Did you know? Dinosaurs are surprisingly rare here: estimates put them at only about 5 to 11 percent of all the four-limbed animals found.
04 Galápagos National Park
Parque nacional Galápagos
Ecuador0.333° S 90.000° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Jonathan Green · CC BY 4.0 Galápagos National Park covers about 97 percent of the land of the Galápagos archipelago, a scatter of more than a hundred volcanic islands, islets and rocks straddling the equator some 900 km west of mainland Ecuador. Only the settled corners of Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela and Baltra lie outside it.
Did you know? The Galápagos Islands were the very first entry on UNESCO's World Heritage List, inscribed in 1978 as site number 1.
05 Talampaya National Park
Parque Nacional Talampaya
Argentina29.796° S 67.811° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Gino Lucas T. · CC BY-SA 2.5 Talampaya is a dry river that left behind a cathedral. Over millions of years water and wind cut down through layers of red Triassic sandstone in the far west of La Rioja province, and the result is a canyon whose sheer walls rise to around 145 metres, stained in iron reds and streaked with dark desert varnish, narrowing at one point to only about 80 metres wide.
Did you know? Among the park's fossils is Palaeochersis talampayensis, one of the oldest turtles known anywhere, which lived here in the Late Triassic more than 210 million years ago.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries in South America?
- On our list, Canaima National Park (Venezuela) ranks first, followed by Iguazú National Park (Argentina) and Ischigualasto Provincial Park (Argentina).
- Which country has the most UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries in South America?
- In our collection, the most come from Argentina (3), Ecuador (1) and Venezuela (1).
- Why is Ischigualasto important for dinosaur studies?
- Its rocks preserve an almost continuous sequence of the Triassic period, around 230 million years ago, with fossils of some of the earliest dinosaurs, including Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus, alongside the reptiles that lived before them.
- Why are Galápagos animals so unusual?
- The islands are volcanic and were never connected to the mainland, so plants and animals that reached them evolved in isolation. Many species, such as marine iguanas and giant tortoises, are found nowhere else.
- How many UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries are on this list in South America?
- The list covers 5 UNESCO-listed nature sanctuaries in 3 countries. Argentina has the most, with 3.