World Heritage Identification Number: 1611
World Heritage since: 2024
Category: Natural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇧🇷 Brazil
Continent: Americas
UNESCO World Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
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Unveiling the Stunning Beauty of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park
The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, nestled in the northeastern corner of Brazil, offers a breathtaking spectacle that defies imagination. This expansive protected area, spanning over 155,000 hectares, lies along the eastern coast of Maranhão, where the diverse Brazilian biomes of Cerrado, Caatinga, and Amazon converge.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
The property is located in northeastern Brazil, on the east coast of Maranhão, in a transition zone between three Brazilian biomes: Cerrado, Caatinga and Amazon. More than half of its area consists of a white coastal dune field with temporary and permanent lagoons. Beyond its important role in biodiversity conservation, the park boasts globally significant aesthetic and geological/geomorphological values. Along an 80 km coastline, with beaches followed by plains, the prevailing winds shape the dunes into long chains of barchans, filled in the rainy season to create lagoons of various colours, shapes, sizes and depths. The property reveals its best scenery when the lagoons reach their maximum volume, creating rare beauty. The vast expanse of both stable and shifting dunes, the largest in South America, presents remarkable evidence of the evolutionary progression of coastal dunes throughout the Quaternary period.
Encyclopedia Record: Lençóis Maranhenses National Park
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park is a national park in Maranhão state in northeastern Brazil, just east of the Baía de São José. Protected on June 2, 1981, the 155,000 ha (380,000-acre) park includes 70 km (43 mi) of coastline, and an interior composed of rolling sand dunes. During the rainy season, the valleys among the dunes fill with freshwater lagoons, prevented from draining by the impermeable rock beneath. The park is home to a range of species, including four listed as endangered, and has become a popular destination for ecotourists.Additional Site Details
Area: 156,562 hectares
(viii) — Outstanding example representing major earth stages
Coordinates: -2.5366666667 , -43.0636111111
Image
© Julius Dadalti, CC BY-SA 4.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
