What is the Great Barrier Reef recognized as the world's largest example of?

The Great Barrier Reef is recognized as the world’s largest coral reef system.

It extends along Queensland’s northeastern coast and consists of thousands of individual reefs and hundreds of islands. It is not one continuous wall of coral, despite the common way it is described in popular media.

The system formed through the growth and accumulation of colonial corals and other reef organisms over changing sea levels. Its size is measured as a connected reef ecosystem rather than as a single uninterrupted structure.

People sometimes confuse the Great Barrier Reef with the world’s largest single coral reef. The distinction matters: the Great Barrier Reef is a vast system containing many separate reefs, channels, lagoons, and islands.