Sundarbans: the world's largest mangrove forests and a home of tigers

Background

The Sundarbans National Park in West Bengal was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987, with India as the State Party. The listed property covers 133,010 hectares. UNESCO says the wider Sundarbans, in the Ganges delta, cover about 10,000 sq. km of land and water, more than half of it in India and the rest in Bangladesh. UNESCO says the Sundarbans contain the world's largest mangrove forests. The mangrove habitat supports the single largest population of tigers in the world, which have adapted to an almost amphibious life. Irrawaddy and Ganges River dolphins and the king cobra also live there.