REEF FACTS: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and World Heritage Area

If the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was superimposed on the moon, it would stretch over half the apparent diameter as seen from Earth.

Within the Marine Park there are about 2,900 reefs which include 760 fringing reefs and 300 coral cays including: 213 unvegetated cays; 43 vegetated cays and 44 lowland wooded islands.

There are also 618 continental islands which were once part of the mainland. Only about 6% of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is coral reef (the rest is continental slope, inter-reefal areas, and the Great Barrier Reef lagoon).

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park does not encompass all of the Great Barrier Reef, which extends past Australian waters, up to Papua New Guinea.

CRC Reef research for Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Management

The Great Barrier Reef was accepted for inclusion upon the World Heritage List in 1981, meeting all four of the natural heritage criteria (geological phenomena,ecological and biological processes, aesthetics and natural beauty, and biological diversity, including threatened species).

The GBRWHA extends from the low water mark on the Queensland coast to past the edge of the continental shelf, and from the tip of Cape York Peninsula to just north of Fraser Island. It includes mangroves, rocky reefs, sandflats, open ocean and the deep sea floor.

Only 2.3% of the GBRWHA lies outside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The GBRWHA is five times the size of Tasmania.

The GBRWHA is 3% of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which is 11 million square km in area.

The Great Barrier Reef's World Heritage values