Mondo Knows Facts

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure built by living organisms

It stretches over two thousand kilometres along the coast of Australia

Composed of billions of tiny coral polyps, the Great Barrier Reef spans roughly 2,300 kilometres off the coast of Queensland. It covers an area of about 344,400 square kilometres and is so massive that it can be seen from space. It provides habitat for thousands of marine species.

Aerial View of Great Barrier Reef (Ank Kumar) 02
Ank Kumar ยท CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท licence ยท source

Where this comes from

UNESCO

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Tags: coral reef, australia, ocean

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure built by living organisms: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
It stretches over two thousand kilometres along the coast of Australia. The figure is taken from UNESCO, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a records & extremes fact?
Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.