The site com­pris­es 244 islands, islets and coastal areas that are locat­ed in the Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia in north-east­­ern Mex­i­co. The Sea of Cortez and its islands have been called a nat­ur­al lab­o­ra­to­ry for the inves­ti­ga­tion of spe­ci­a­tion. More­over, almost all major oceano­graph­ic process­es occur­ring in the planet‘s oceans are present in the prop­er­ty, giv­ing it extra­or­di­nary impor­tance for study. The site is one of strik­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty in a dra­mat­ic set­ting formed by rugged islands with high cliffs and sandy beach­es, which con­trast with the bril­liant reflec­tion from the desert and the sur­round­ing turquoise waters. It is home to 695 vas­cu­lar plant species, more than in any marine and insu­lar prop­er­ty on the World Her­itage List. Equal­ly excep­tion­al is the num­ber of fish species: 891, 90 of them endem­ic. The site, more­over, con­tains 39% of the world‘s total num­ber of species of marine mam­mals and a third of the world‘s marine cetacean species.