The Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and the Great Dividing Range in Australia's World Heritage record

Background

UNESCO records 21 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List for Australia, which ratified the World Heritage Convention on Thursday, 22 August 1974. Its listed properties include the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Kakadu National Park, the Tasmanian Wilderness, the Sydney Opera House and the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens.
The Great Barrier Reef, inscribed in 1981 under criteria (vii)(viii)(ix)(x), covers a property of 34,870,000 ha. UNESCO describes it as a site of remarkable variety and beauty on the north-east coast of Australia that contains the world's largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, inscribed in 1987 under criteria (v)(vi)(vii)(viii), covers 132,566 ha. The sandstone monolith of Uluru and the conglomerate domes of Kata Tjuta rise abruptly to over 300 metres in height above the surrounding sandplains and woodland, and the traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta are the Anangu Aboriginal people.
Geoscience Australia records that the highest mountains on the Australian mainland are in the Snowy Mountains region in New South Wales and the Victorian Alps, which are part of the Great Dividing Range separating the central lowlands from the eastern highlands. Mount Kosciuszko, at 2228 m, is the highest; the highest point in Victoria is Mt Bogong at 1986 m and in Tasmania Mt Ossa at 1617 m.
The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia's largest river system, with 77,000 kilometres of rivers; its 2 main rivers are the River Murray and the Darling River, and it covers most of New South Wales, some of southern Queensland, the east of South Australia, northern Victoria and all of the Australian Capital Territory.