Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Parks & Protected Areas
Guatemala has more than 90 protected areas, including
reservas de biosfera
(biosphere re-
serves),
parques nacionales
(national parks),
biotopos protegidos
(protected biotopes),
refugios de vida silvestre
(wildlife refuges) and
reservas naturales privadas
(private nature
reserves). Even though some areas are contained within other, larger ones, they amount to
28% of the national territory. Tikal National Park is the only such area on the Unesco
World Heritage list in Guatemala, and owes half its listing to the archaeological site found
within.
Many of the protected areas are remote and hard to access for the independent traveler;
the table shows those that are easiest to reach and/or most interesting to visitors (but ex-
cludes volcanoes, nearly all of which are protected, and areas of mainly archaeological in-
terest).
