Islands

Continental islands with fringing reefs

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park contains more than 900 islands.

Continental islands

Of these, 618 are continental islands.

Coral cays

The Park also has 300 coral cays, about 230 of which are permanently vegetated. The remainder are small, bare sand cays that shift in response to winds, waves and currents.

Reefs

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is the world's largest group of coral reefs, covering an area of 344,400km². It extends for over 2300km along the coast of Queensland and includes 2900 individual reefs.

Continental shelf

The continental shelf provides the platform from which the reefs on the Great Barrier Reef develop.

 

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