Darién National Park

Travel Blog  •  Ben Keene  •  03.03.06 | 12:46 PM ET

Coordinates: 7 36 N 77 57 W
Area: 2,305 square miles (5,970 sq. km)
imageDepending on your fondness for off-road driving, improvements to infrastructure in the past few years have made possible excruciatingly long road trips where intrepid motorists would once have been forced to find a detour. February 2004 saw the last stretch of the Chita-Khabarovsk Highway open in Russia, and later this year an upgrade to the road connecting China’s Yunnan province to Myanmar will be complete. In the Western Hemisphere, however, the Pan-American Highway ends abruptly in Yaviza, Panama, just outside Darién National Park. A World Heritage Site since 1981, Darién’s diverse range of virgin habitats occupies most of the Colombian frontier, forming a final fragile obstacle to an intercontinental thoroughfare begun nearly nine decades ago.

—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

Tags: South America, Colombia

Ben Keene has appeared on National Public Radio, Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio as well as other nationally syndicated programs to discuss geographic literacy and his work updating a bestselling world atlas. Formerly a touring musician, he has written for Transitions Abroad and inTravel.


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