Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California

Few seas concentrate life like the Gulf of California. Its 244 islands, islets and coastal stretches shelter 695 vascular plant species and 891 kinds of fish, 90 of them found nowhere else, while 39% of the world's marine mammal species frequent these waters. Scientists prize the Sea of Cortez as a natural laboratory of species formation; travellers come for desert islands set in turquoise. UNESCO inscribed the property in 2005.