Belize Barrier Reef

The Belize Barrier Reef is a roughly 300-kilometre series of coral reefs running along the coast of Belize, lying about 300 metres offshore in the north and as much as 40 kilometres offshore in the south. It forms the Belize section of the larger 900-kilometre Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which stretches from Cancun through the Riviera Maya to Honduras, making it the second-largest barrier reef system in the world after Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Three coral atolls sit off the reef, Turneffe Atoll, Glover's Reef and Lighthouse Reef, the last of which contains the Great Blue Hole made famous by Jacques Cousteau's 1970 expedition. Charles Darwin, visiting in 1842, called it the most remarkable reef in the West Indies, and the reef remains central to Belize's tourism and fishing industries.