How long is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef system, measured from north to south?

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef system stretches for about 2,300 kilometres from north to south.

The reef lies off Queensland’s northeastern coast, beginning near the Torres Strait and extending south toward Lady Elliot Island. It is not one continuous wall of coral: the system includes thousands of individual reefs, islands and coral cays spread across a vast marine area.

The 2,300-kilometre figure describes the length of the broader reef system, not the distance across the ocean at any single point. Its width varies considerably, reaching hundreds of kilometres in places. This scale makes the Great Barrier Reef the largest coral reef ecosystem in the world, although it is composed of many separate formations.

People sometimes confuse the reef’s length with the length of Queensland’s coastline or with the area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Those are different measurements: length describes its north–south span, while the marine park covers the surrounding waters and seabed.