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Phong Nha Ke Bang a Natural World Heritage Site

11:36:1524/12/2015

The Park is accessible by road (National Route 1A or Hồ Chí Minh Highway 450 km south of Hanoi, 50 km north of Đồng Hới, 210 km north of Huế); by rail at Đồng Hới Railway station on Hanoi-Saigon Railway; by air at Đồng Hới Airport 45 km south of the park. Tourists are served at the Tourism Service Center at Sơn Trạch commune of Bố Trạch District, the entrance of this center is located by Hồ Chí Minh Highway.

The Phong Nha- Ke Bang National Park was on the World Heritage list on July 3rd, 2003 for criteria viii ( geology and earth crust development), and  inscribed the criteria of ix (ecosystem and landscape) and x (biodiversity) on July 3rd, 2015. The park covers an large area of 123,326ha and over 220,000ha of buffer zone.

 The Park is located in Quang Binh Province, the Central Viet Nam. It is one part of the Karst plateau, which extends to and adjoins the Hin Namno National Biodiversity Conservation Area of the Lao PDR. Phong Nha Ke Bang contains many large and spectacular caves. The karst landscape is an extremely complex and ancient one, with high geo-diversity and some geomorphic features of considerable significance. It has an Earth crust development history from the Ordovician period (464 million years ago). This has produced three types of topography and geomorphology. One type is the non-karst landforms, which consist of low, round-top mountains with vegetation surfaces and abrasion-accumulation terraces along the valleys of the Son and Chay rivers and at the margins of the central limestone massif. The other major type is karst landforms, which are characterized by old tropical karst mainly from the Mezozoic era, but two-thirds of the site consists of karst from the Cenozoic. Extensive transitional landforms comprise an extremely complex intercalation of limestone massifs and terrigenous terrain with a diversity of rock types. The limestone occupies an area of about 200,000 ha and its highest point is 1,290 m above sea level.

The karst formation process results in many features like ground river cave, dry cave,  terraced cave, suspended cave, dendritic cave and intersecting cave which are contained in three systems - Phong Nha, Vom and Chay. 203 caves and 200km of those are explored and measured.

 Tropical forest of Phong Nha- Ke Bang National Park covers  92% the total area of the park, 90% of which is intact primary forest with diversified flora, consists of 6 phylum, 201 families, 972 genus and 2935 species of vascular plants. Especially, an area of 24000ha of ancient conifer over 500 years old was discovered, the unique population of precious conifer species are existing at latitude of 700 m in the park. The forest is home to 829 vertebrate species, 153 mammals, 151 reptiles and amphibians, 303 birds, 212 fish. The park is particularly rich in primate with 10 species and sub-species.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang is part of a tourism promotion campaign, "Middle World Heritage Road" which includes the ancient capital of Huế, the Champa relics of My Son, the city of Hoi An, Nha nhac and the Space of gong culture in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Tourist activities in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park include:Tour for expedition of caves and grottos in boats and with professional cave expedition means;  Ecotourism, discovering the flora and fauna in this national park in the Kẻ Bàng Forest; Mountain climbing, trekking: There are extreme sloping mountains here with a height of over 1,000 m, which is a real challenge for adventurous climbers.