World Heritage Identification Number: 721
World Heritage since: 1995
Category: Natural Heritage
WHE Type: Protected Areas & National Parks
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇺🇸 United States of America
Continent: Americas
UNESCO World Region: Europe and North America
Map
Exploring the Subterranean Wonders of Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, nestled within the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico, offers a captivating blend of geology, biology, and history. Established in 1930, this national park has since become renowned for its extensive network of over 80 recognized caves, each boasting unique mineral formations that have been sculpted by nature over millennia.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
This karst landscape in the state of New Mexico comprises over 80 recognized caves. They are outstanding not only for their size but also for the profusion, diversity and beauty of their mineral formations. Lechuguilla Cave stands out from the others, providing an underground laboratory where geological and biological processes can be studied in a pristine setting.
UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site
Criterion (vii): The park’s primary caves, Carlsbad and Lechuguilla, are well known for the abundance, diversity, and beauty of their decorative rock formations. Lechuguilla Cave exhibits rare and unique speleothems, including the largest accumulation of gypsum “chandeliers,” some of which extend more than six meters (18 feet) in length.
Criterion (viii): Carlsbad Caverns National Park is one of the few places in the world where on-going geologic processes are most apparent and rare speleothems continue to form, enabling scientists to study geological processes in a virtually undisturbed environment. These speleothems include helictites forming underwater, calcite and gypsum speleothems, and an astonishing collection of “biothems,” cave formations assisted in their formation by bacteria. Researchers can study both the Capitan reef’s inside through cave passages that penetrate in and through it as well as eroded canyon-exposed cross sections outside.
Encyclopedia Record: Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a national park of the United States in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico. The primary attraction of the park is the show cave Carlsbad Cavern. Visitors can hike in on their own via the natural entrance or take an elevator from the visitor center.Additional Site Details
Area: 18,926 hectares
Number of Components: 1
(viii) — Outstanding example representing major earth stages
Coordinates: 32.16666667 , -104.3833333
IUCN World Heritage Outlook
The 2025 Conservation Outlook on Carlsbad Caverns National Park reports the following assessment:
Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) · View assessment
Image
© Eric Guinther, User:Marshman, CC BY-SA 3.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
