Red Sea Coral Reef

The Red Sea coral reef system fringes the coastlines of the Red Sea, the narrow sea separating northeastern Africa from the Arabian Peninsula, and includes some of the northernmost reef-building coral communities on Earth, extending well beyond the tropical latitudes where most reefs are found. The Red Sea's unusual isolation, connected to the open ocean only through the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb strait at its southern end, together with its high salinity and comparatively stable water temperatures, has produced a reef system with substantial endemism, including coral, fish and invertebrate species found nowhere else. Its corals have also drawn significant scientific attention for tolerating unusually warm water without the mass bleaching seen on many other reef systems as ocean temperatures rise, making the northern Red Sea reefs a closely studied natural example of heat resilience in reef-building coral. The reef supports major dive tourism along the coasts of Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, with sites along the Sinai Peninsula, including Sharm el-Sheikh and the Ras Mohammed area, among the best known in the world.