Cabo Polonio

Cabo Polonio National Park was established in 2009 in the department of Rocha, on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay, and protects some 255 km² of dunes, beaches, coastal woodland and sea.

Its best-known feature is the village of Cabo Polonio, a settlement with no access roads, no mains electricity and no running water, reached only by four-wheel-drive vehicles over the sand or by walking several kilometres across the dunes. That condition, deliberately maintained, has made the place a symbol of the country and a singular case of coexistence between an inhabited settlement and a protected area.

The dune system is one of active mobile dunes, uncommon on the South American Atlantic coast, and it advances over the coastal woodland. On the islets and rocks off the cape sits one of the largest pinniped colonies in South America, of South American fur seal and South American sea lion, a colony that was commercially exploited until 1991. Southern right whales pass off the coast on their winter migration. The park forms part of the Bañados del Este Biosphere Reserve, recognised by UNESCO in 1976, Uruguay's first.