The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia. It stretches over 2000 kilometres in length and can be seen from space.

The Great Barrier Reef is a large system of about 900 islands and over 3000 coral reefs, which mostly lie some distance from the mainland coastline. Due to its vast biodiversity, warm clear waters and its accessibility from the floating guest facilities called 'live aboards', the reef is a very popular destination for tourists, especially scuba divers. Many cities along the Queensland coast offer boat trips to the reef on a daily basis. Several continental islands have been turned into resorts.

The Great Barrier Reef is sometimes referred to as the single largest organism in the world. In reality it is made up of many millions of tiny organisms, as are all coral formations.

A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.