The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is one of Australia's most prominent tourism spots.  On average, 2 million people visit the Reef per year.  That is a lot of people. The Reef stretches 284,000 square kilometers wide and 1,200 miles from top to bottom.  It is bigger than Kansas, Italy, or the United Kingdom.  The Great Barrier Reef is equivalent in measure to the west coast of the United States.  That basically gives you a very small idea of how big the Reef is.  It is also the ocean equivalent of the Amazon Rain Forest because it is teeming with all sorts of wild life.  It contains atleast fifteen hundred species of fish, four hundred types of coral, and four thousand varieties of mollusks.  It is one of the greatest wonders of the world and definitely something to see before you die.

Bryson, Bill.  In a Sunburned Country.  New York: Broadway Books, 2000