1. The only site has been twice recognized as a Natural World Heritage and won the vote to become one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world.
With an area of 1.553 km2 including 1,969 islands stretching along the coast, Ha Long Bay has outstanding values, of which two outstanding universal values of landscape, geology and geomorphology have been recognized by UNESCO.
Immortal and magnificent beauty of Ha Long Bay is created by three elements, namely: Stone, Water and Sky. This is a “privilege” endowed by the Nature which can not be possessed by any other countries.
With such unique values, Ha Long Bay has surpassed more than 400 wonders from over 200 countries and territories to be inscribed on the list of the new seven natural world wonders.
2. Landscape value
Ha Long Bay is one of the 10 most beautiful bays in the world. It is an extraordinary work of art by the Creator, a combination of sculpture and painting. It is also the harmony and flexibility of layout and colours, of shape and space, etc. All of these features are formed by thousands islands rising from the blue sea with different shapes that seem to be purposefully made by the Creator, inspiring endless imagination of the human beings.
3. Geological and morphologic values
With the largest number of islands, accounted for 2/3 of total islands in Viet Nam, Ha Long Bay has a long geological history of around 500 million years including various formations of terrestrial deposit and carbonate sediment. These are historical evidences recording great events of the regional geological process. This is shown through colours, material composition, arrangement and structure of rock layers, fossil relics that are still preserved.
Ha Long Bay is the most extensive and best example of marine invaded karst landscape and one of the most important areas of fengcong and fengling karst in the world. It is considered as one of the most extensive and best-developed areas of Karst towers in the world. This is an outstanding universal value affirming its position of a Natural World Heritage - and a Natural World Wonder.
4. Biodiversity value
Biodiversity is an advantage and attractive feature of Ha Long Bay with the typical ecosystems of the tropical sea. The biodiversity of Ha Long Bay is shown by the variety of species, and endemic and rare genes. There are 2,949 species of flora and fauna. Of which 102 species are rare and specious at global or regional level; 17 species of plants are endemic to Ha Long Bay.
5. Cultural and historical values
Ha Long is one of the homes to the ancient Vietnamese people with three continuous pre-historic cultures about 18,000 to 3,500 years ago, namely: Soi Nhu culture, Cai Beo culture, and Ha Long culture. It also stores outstanding intangible and tangible cultural values with famous archaeological sites, such as: Tien Ong, Me Cung, and Thien Long etc.
6. The world heritage with the most values
Apart from landscape, geographical and morphologic values that have been recognized by UNESCO, Ha Long Bay also contains 2 outstanding values, namely: biodiversity, and cultural and historical values which are not present in 6 world heritages in Viet Nam and more than 900 heritages in the world.
7. Tourism and recreation values
With magnificent natural landscape, different types of caves, beautiful beaches, and a large numbers of cultural and historical relics, Ha Long Bay gathers almost of important factors concerning the country, people, landscape, culture and history. These advantages make it enough attractive to tourists and to foster Viet Nam tourism. At present, overnight stay on the Bay is considered as unique and distinctive tourism product attracting a wide range of domestic and international tourists.
8. Diversity of aquatic products
With ideal conditions, nutrient-rich water resource, calm sea and large tidal flats, Ha Long Bay has diversified marine resources. In Ha Long Bay, there are 315 species of fish and 450 species of mollusc. It is habitat of various kinds of highly-valued sea products, such as: garrupa, mackerel, threadfin, cuttle-fish, shrimp, crab, abalone, and holothurian. Ha Long Bay is therefore a favourable place for aquaculture, especially for raising high economic value and environmental friendly species, namely: geoduck, clam, pearl, and arca, etc.
9. A destination receiving the largest number of international tourist arrivals in Viet Nam
With its favourable natural conditions and its titles, Ha Long Bay is the destination attracting the largest number of international tourist arrivals among 06 world heritages of Viet Nam in recent years (receiving over 6 million arrivals of domestic and foreign tourists in 2011). Ha Long is always one of the first priorities of almost of international tourists when they design their voyage to Viet Nam.
Source: baoquangninh.com.vn