UNESCO Heritage Sites

The Royal Exhibition Building and the surrounding Carlton Gardens, as the main extant survivors of a Palace of Industry and its setting, together reflect the global influence of the international exhibition movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement showcased technological innovation and change, which helped promote a rapid increase in industrialization and international trade through the exchange of knowledge and ideas. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Cultural Criterion: (II) Date of Inscription: 2004

Covering an area of over 1 million hectares, the Tasmanian Wilderness constitutes one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world. It comprises a contiguous network of reserved lands that extends over much of south-western Tasmania including several coastal islands. In contrast to the mainland, the island of Tasmania is a rugged region with fold structures in the western half and fault structures in the east, both of which are represented in the property. The fold structure province in the south-west is an extremely rugged and densely vegetated region with north-south oriented mountain ranges and valley systems. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Mixed Heritage Site Criterion: (III)(IV) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) Date of Inscription: 1982

Macquarie Island is an oceanic island in the Southern Ocean, lying 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and approximately halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent. The island is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie Ridge, raised to its present position where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate. It is a site of major geo-conservation significance, being the only place where rocks from the Earth's mantle (6 km below the ocean floor) are being actively exposed above sea level. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Natural Criterion: (VII)(VIII) Date of Inscription: 1997

The transportation of people for forced labour is a system shared by many human societies, at various periods of history and in many civilizations. Most often, it involved slavery or the deportation of people following war. However, in the modern and contemporary eras, convict colonies were used as a place for prisoners to serve their sentences in a distant land, where they were generally used for forced labour. Penal colonies were initially for the imprisonment of criminals, coupled with forced labour. In Europe they were concentrated in military ports, for example, to provide labour to work on galleys or for hard labour in arsenals, building infrastructure, etc. In times of war, forced-labour prison camps are similar in terms of their organization and objectives. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Cultural Criterion: (IV)(VI) Date of Inscription: 2010

The Ningaloo Coast is located on Western Australia's remote coast along the East Indian Ocean. The interconnected ocean and arid coast form aesthetically striking landscapes and seascapes. The coastal waters host a major near shore reef system and a directly adjacent limestone karst system and associated habitats and species along an arid coastline. The property holds a high level of terrestrial species endemism and high marine species diversity and abundance. An estimated 300 to 500 whale sharks aggregate annually coinciding with mass coral spawning events and seasonal localized increases in productivity. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Natural Criterion: (VII)(X) Date of Inscription: 2011

Fraser Island lies just off the east coast of Australia. Stretching over 120 km along the southern coast of Queensland, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It is a place of exceptional beauty, with long uninterrupted white beaches flanked by strikingly coloured sand cliffs, majestic tall rainforests and numerous freshwater lakes of crystal-clear waters. The massive sand deposits that make up the island are a continuous record of climatic and sea level changes over the past 700,000 years. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Natural Criterion: (VII)(VIII) (IX) Date of Inscription: 1992

The Great Barrier Reef is a site of remarkable variety and beauty on the north-east coast of Australia. It the world's most extensive stretch of coral reef and is probably the richest area in terms of faunal diversity in the world. Its great diversity reflects the maturity of an ecosystem which has evolved over millions of years on the north-east continental shelf of Australia. The site contains a huge diversity of species including over 1,500 species of fish, about 360 species of hard coral, 5,000 species of mollusc, and more than 175 species of bird, plus a great diversity of sponges, anemones, marine worms and crustaceans, among others. Continent: Oceania Country: Australia Category: Cultural Criterion: (VII)(VIII) (IX) (X) Date of Inscription: 1981