Sistema Arrecifal de Belice

Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, the Belize Barrier Reef is the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere and forms part of the second most extensive reef system on the planet after Australia's Great Barrier Reef: the Mesoamerican Reef System, shared with Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. It takes in the celebrated Great Blue Hole, a circular submarine sinkhole 300 metres across and 124 metres deep, formed through successive ice ages when the sea was far lower and a limestone cave collapsed in on itself; the oceanographic explorer Jacques Cousteau named it in the 1970s one of the ten finest dive sites in the world, which made its international reputation.