The Península Valdés in Argentina was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999. The site is home to important breeding populations of the southern right whale, southern elephant seal, and southern sea lion. The Econcentro museum focuses on local habitats and wildlife while offering beautiful views of the Golfo Nuevo.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s most extensive stretch of coral reef with probably the richest animal diversity anywhere. There are over 1,500 species of fish, ~400 types of coral, 4,000 types of mollusk, and diverse sponges, anemones, marine worms, crustaceans, and other invertebrate and vertebrate species. The “GBR” provides refuge, habitat, and resources for several endangered species, including dugong, and feeding grounds and nesting grounds for green turtles and loggerhead turtles.

The Macquarie Island site in Australia is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie oceanic ridge, raised to its present position where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate. It is a site of major geo-conservation significance, with exposures that include excellent examples of pillow basalts and other extrusive rocks. The island hosts southern elephant seals, sub-Antarctic fur seals, albatross, giant petrels, king penguins, and a meteorologist at the station.

The Shark Bay site in Australia was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1991. The site is home to the world's richest and largest sea-grass beds; five species of endangered marine mammals, including dugongs, which feed on the grass; and stromatolites, dome-shaped structures created by cyanobacteria, one of the oldest forms of life on earth.

The Sundarbans site in Bangladesh was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997. The site’s mangrove forest is one of the largest remaining areas of mangroves in the world and supports a rich animal community, including 230 kinds of birds, the estuarine crocodile, Indian python, and endangered Bengal tiger.

The Brazilian Atlantic Islands site joined the List in 2001. The rich waters of the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago and Rocas Atoll are extremely important for the breeding and feeding of tuna, shark, turtle, and marine mammals. The site is home to the largest concentration of tropical seabirds in the Western Atlantic. Baia de Golfinhos has an exceptional population of resident dolphin, and at low tide, the Rocal Atoll provides a spectacular seascape of lagoons and tidal pools teeming with fish.

The Kluane/Wrangell-St Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek sites in Canada and the US are the largest non-polar ice-field in the world and contain some of the world’s longest and most spectacular glaciers. Featuring high mountains, ice-fields, and glaciers, the site transitions from northern interior to coastal biogeoclimatic zones, with high biodiversity plant and animal communities ranging from marine, coastal forest, montane, sub-alpine, and alpine tundra, all in various successional stages.

The Area de Conservación Guanacaste site in Costa Rica was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999. The site has the most intact inshore Pacific marine ecosystem between the Panama Canal Zone and Mexico, with major nutrient-rich upwelling currents, resulting in high biological productivity. The area includes key habitat for notable threatened or rare animal species, such as the jaguar, jabiru stork, saltwater crocodile, olive ridley sea turtle, and leatherback sea turtle.

Cocos Island's position as the first point of contact with the northern equatorial counter-current, and the myriad interactions between the island and the surrounding marine ecosystem, make the area an ideal laboratory for the study of biological processes. The site hosts critical habitats for marine wildlife, including large pelagic species, especially sharks (like the hammerhead Sphyrna lewini), but also rays, tuna, and dolphins.

The Galápagos Islands site in Ecuador and the surrounding marine reserve—nearly 1000 km from South America—are a unique "living museum and showcase of evolution." Seismic and volcanic processes formed the islands, and together with the extreme isolation, led to the development of unusual animals, such as the land iguana, giant tortoise, and the many types of finch—all inspiration for Charles Darwin's development of the theory of evolution by natural selection, following his visit in 1835.

The Gulf of Porto: Calanche of Piana, Gulf of Girolata, Scandola Reserve site in France was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1983. The site's vegetation is an outstanding example of scrubland. Seagulls, cormorants, and sea eagles can be found here, while the clear waters, with their islets and inaccessible caves, host a rich and diverse marine life.

The Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems site features an exceptional diversity of coral and fish species and a continuum of habitats from mangroves to seagrasses, with one of the world's most diverse concentrations of reef structures. The lagoons also provide habitat to emblematic or threatened marine species such as giant grouper, black-spotted stingray, several species of sharks, whales, dolphins, turtles, and the third largest population of dugongs in the world.

The Wadden Sea is a large, relatively flat coastal wetland environment, with tidal channels, sandy shoals, sea-grass meadows, mussel beds, sandbars, mudflats, salt marshes, estuaries, beaches, and dunes. It is the breeding and wintering area for up to 12 million birds. It also hosts marine mammals, including the harbor seal, gray seal, and harbor porpoise; and is one of the only remaining large-scale intertidal ecosystems where natural processes continue to function largely undisturbed.

Surtsey is a new island formed by volcanic eruptions between 1963 and 1967. The site is unique because it's been protected since its formation. Free from human interference, Surtsey has been producing long-term information on the colonization process of new land by plant and animal life, both terrestrial and marine. Soon after the island's formation, seals were seen resting on shore, and by 1982 gray seals were breeding. The presence of seals has attracted killer whales, one of their predators.

The Sundarbans National Park, located in the Ganges delta, contains the world's largest mangrove forest and hosts a number of rare and endangered species including tigers, aquatic mammals, birds, and reptiles. Mammals that frequent the tidal waters include Ganges dolphins, Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins, irrawaddy dolphins, and finless porpoises. Reptiles that use the park include olive ridley sea turtles, which nest in the park, green sea turtles, and estuarine crocodiles.

The Komodo National Park site in Indonesia hosts "Komodo dragons", a unique species that exists nowhere else in the world and is of great interest to scientists studying evolution. The rugged hillsides of dry savannah and pockets of thorny green vegetation contrast starkly with the brilliant white sandy beaches and blue coral-rich waters offshore.

The Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia includes the Ujung Kulon Peninsula and several offshore islands, along with the natural reserve of Krakatoa. It contains the largest remaining area of lowland rainforests in the Java plain. The coral reefs are dominated by a small number of coral species and support some of the richest fish fauna in the Indonesian archipelago, including deep sea barracuda, sailfish, tuna, skipjack, sharks, and abundant reef populations of butterfly fish.

The key feature of Japan’s Shiretoko site is its exceptional productivity, largely resulting from the formation of relatively low-latitude seasonal sea ice, which feeds the growth of phytoplankton, the base of the marine food-web. Shiretoko is an important refuge for threatened seabirds like the Steller's sea eagle, a number of salmonid species, and nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including Steller's sea lions and sperm whales.

At the Ocean Portal we focus on unusual and everyday organisms, ocean-inspired art, and researchers exploring this still mostly mysterious ecosystem. The Ocean Portal is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Initiative. Together with the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall and the Sant Marine Science Chair, the Ocean Portal supports the Smithsonian’s mission to increase the public’s understanding and stewardship of the Ocean. Visit us for everything ocean. Find Your Blue!