Misool Raja Ampat's Destination

Raja Ampat, or the Four Kings, is an archipelago located off the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Southwest Papua province. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and shoals surrounding the four main islands of Misool, Salawati, Batanta, and Waigeo, and the smaller island of Kofiau. The Raja Ampat archipelago straddles the Equator and forms part of the Coral Triangle which contains the richest marine biodiversity on earth. Raja Ampat Marine Recreation Park was designated in 2009. It is composed of four marine areas – the waters around northern Salawati, Batanta, and southwestern Waigeo, Mayalibit Bay in central Waigeo, the waters southeast of Misool, and waters around the Sembilan Islands north of Misool and west of Salawati. According to Conservation International, marine surveys suggest that the marine life diversity in the Raja Ampat area is the highest recorded on Earth. Diversity is considerably greater than any other area sampled in the Coral Triangle composed of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. The Coral Triangle is the heart of the world's coral reef biodiversity, making Raja Ampat quite possibly the richest coral reef ecosystem in the world.