The Great Barrier Reef is the largest tropical coral reef system in the world?

To put it into perspective, the Great Barrier Reef is:

• 2,300km long or about 348,000 square km
• The size of about 70 million football fields
• Bigger than Victoria and Tasmania combined
• Bigger than New Zealand
• Bigger than the United Kingdom
• Roughly the same size as Japan; and
• Approximately half the size of Texas

There are more different species of animals and plants in one cubic metre of the Great Barrier Reef, than in any other environment on the planet?

The Great Barrier Reef is home to:

• 1,500 of the world's 13,000 species of marine fish (that's just over 10%)
• 360 species of hard corals
• 600 species of echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers)
• 500 species of seaweed
• 6 of the world's 7 species of marine turtles
• 200 species of birds
• 14,000 dugongs; and
• 125 species of sharks and rays