Galápagos Islands

No place on Earth taught us more about evolution than the Galápagos. A thousand kilometres off South America, these 19 volcanic islands and their surrounding waters brew a singular mix of life — giant tortoises, land iguanas, flightless cormorants and a famous flock of finch species — shaped by extreme isolation and the meeting of three ocean currents. Charles Darwin's 1835 visit seeded his theory of natural selection, and in 1978 the archipelago was among the first places ever inscribed by UNESCO as World Heritage.