Belize Barrier Reef — coral reef
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Belize Barrier Reef

  • 2 min read
  • 17.262° N 88.053° W
  • UNESCO World Heritage
  • UNESCO natural beauty

Interesting facts

  • In the north the reef runs as little as 300 metres offshore, while in the south it lies up to about 40 km from the coast.
  • In December 2010 Belize became the first country in the world to ban bottom trawling completely.
  • Scientists estimate that about 90 per cent of the reef is still unresearched and only around a tenth of its species have been described.
  • The first mass coral bleaching was recorded in 1995; after 1998, with Hurricane Mitch, live coral cover fell by about 48 per cent.
  • Stalactites recovered from the Great Blue Hole formed in air, proving the sinkhole was a dry cave before sea levels rose.
  • Cousteau's 1971 survey found ledges at about 21, 49 and 91 metres, steps left by sea levels during successive ice ages.
  • Some Blue Hole stalactites hang about 5 degrees off vertical, evidence that the underlying limestone plateau later tilted.
  • In 2018 submarines mapping the Blue Hole found a layer of hydrogen sulfide at about 90 metres, below which the water is dark and lifeless.
  • The reef draws almost half of all visitors to Belize and is vital to the country's fishing industry.
  • The World Heritage reserve system covers about 960 square kilometres across seven marine protected areas.

Why it is worth it

The Belize Barrier Reef runs for roughly 300 km parallel to the Caribbean coast of Belize, a long pale line of breaking surf a few kilometres to some tens of kilometres offshore, with a shallow turquoise lagoon behind it and deep blue water beyond. It is the centrepiece of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which stretches about 900 km from Mexico's Yucatán to Honduras and ranks as the second-longest coral reef system in the world. In 1842, in his book on coral reefs, Charles Darwin described it as the most remarkable reef in the West Indies.

What sets it apart is variety. Besides the barrier itself, the protected area takes in some 450 cayes — from mangrove islets to sandy islands like Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye — and three offshore atolls: Turneffe, Glover's Reef and Lighthouse Reef. In the middle of Lighthouse Reef lies the Great Blue Hole, a near-perfect circle about 318 metres across and 124 metres deep, a drowned sinkhole that Jacques Cousteau brought to world attention when he took his ship Calypso there in 1971. From the air it is one of the most striking shapes in any ocean.

Under the water, the reef holds about 70 species of hard coral, 36 of soft coral and around 500 species of fish, along with turtles, rays and nurse sharks. At Hol Chan Marine Reserve near Ambergris Caye, snorkellers drift through a natural cut in the reef; at Half Moon Caye a colony of red-footed boobies nests on a tiny island at the edge of Lighthouse Reef.

Seven protected areas along the reef were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The reef has suffered heavily from bleaching and hurricanes since the 1990s, and it was on the World Heritage in Danger list from 2009 to 2018; Belize's ban on bottom trawling and its moratorium on offshore oil exploration, adopted at the end of 2017, helped bring it off that list.

Getting there

Belize City is the gateway: the reef lies about 30 km offshore at its nearest point. International flights land at Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport (BZE), about 16 km from the city; domestic flights to the islands also leave from the city's municipal airport (TZA). Water taxis run several times a day from Belize City to Caye Caulker (about 45 minutes) and San Pedro on Ambergris Caye (75–90 minutes), the main bases for snorkelling, diving and boat trips to the atolls and the Blue Hole.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Coral Reefs 5The Most Beautiful Coral Reefs 10The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Islands 15The Most Beautiful Islands 59The UNESCO Sites of Exceptional Natural Beauty 77The Most Beautiful Water Wonders 429The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

The Belize Barrier Reef is a series of coral reefs straddling the coast of Belize, roughly 300 metres (980 ft) offshore in the north and 40 kilometres (25 mi) in the south within the country limits. The Belize Barrier Reef is a 300-kilometre (190 mi) long section of the 900-kilometre (560 mi) Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which is continuous from Cancún on the north-eastern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula through the Riviera Maya and down to Honduras, making it the second largest coral reef system in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It is Belize's top tourist destination, popular for scuba diving and snorkeling and attracting almost half of its 260,000 visitors. It is also vital to the country's fishing industry.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

17.26250, -88.05278per Wikidata