Sikhote-Alin

Established in 1935, it is one of the last great strongholds of the Amur (or Siberian) tiger, the largest cat subspecies in the world, which fell to barely 20-30 animals in the wild by the middle of the 20th century through poaching and habitat loss. Thanks to decades of strict protection under the Soviet and Russian system of zapovedniki — scientific reserves closed to mass tourism and given over mainly to research — the wild population has recovered to several hundred across the Amur region. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, valued for preserving the northern limit of Asia's mixed temperate forests all but intact.