Central America

Barbilla National Park is located on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca in Costa Rica, within the Caribbean La Amistad Conservation Area. The park protects humid lowland rain forest along the Caribbean slopes of the Talamancan mountain range.

Barra Honda National Park is located on the Nicoya Peninsula in western Costa Rica. It was created to protect the cave systems under the Barra Honda Peak, formed when islets from the Miocene Era were raised above the plains of the Tempisque River.

The coastal area of Belize is a natural system consisting of the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons, and estuaries. The Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System’s seven sites are a significant habitat for threatened species.

The Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is located in the north of Nicaragua, next to the border with Honduras. Together with three neighboring protected areas of Honduras, it constitutes the largest protected area complex of tropical mountain moist forest north of the Amazon Basin.

Braulio Carrillo National Park is located in central Costa Rica within the volcanic Cordillera Central, one of the areas with the steepest topography in the country. The landscape consists of densely-forested high mountains that include volcanoes and canyons forged by several rivers.

The Cacique Lempira, Señor de las Montañas Biosphere Reserve, which includes Celaque National Park, is located in the western part of Honduras. The ecosystem is primarily cloud forest and includes Cerro las Minas, the highest mountain in Honduras.

Chiquibul National Park is the largest national park in Belize. The park surrounds Caracol, an archaeological reserve that was once one of the most important regional political centers of the Maya Lowlands during the Classic Period. Chiquibul Forest Reserve is adjacent to the park.

The Caribbean Plate is a mostly-oceanic tectonic plate underlying much of Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. These borders are regions of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The Central America Volcanic Arc (CAVA) is a chain of hundreds of volcanic formations that extend from Guatemala to northern Panama, parallel to the Pacific coastline of the Central American Isthmus. These volcanic formations range from major stratovolcanoes to lava domes and cinder cones.

The Central American Atlantic moist forests ecoregion is found along the Caribbean coastal lowlands of Honduras, west into Guatemala and south into eastern Nicaragua. The ecoregion contains Central America's most significant single fragment of natural forest.