Iguazú National Park

Lore & Background

The area of the park was inhabited 10,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers of the Eldoradense culture. Around 1000 CE they were displaced by the Guaraní, who brought new agricultural technologies, and were displaced in turn by Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores in the 16th century. The first European to visit the zone was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1542, and Jesuit missions followed in 1609.

Reader's Guide

Iguazú National Park was created in 1934 to preserve one of Argentina's greatest natural beauties, the Iguazu Falls, surrounded by subtropical jungle. The Iguazú National Reserve, defined by law in 1970, constitutes the western part of the park and admits human activities and infrastructure, including an international airport and tourist hotels. The park lies within the Alto Paraná Atlantic forests ecoregion and hosts rare and threatened species such as the jaguar, South American tapir, harpy eagle, and yacare caiman. Its flora includes the ceibo, whose flower is Argentina's national flower, as well as lapacho negro, lapacho amarillo, palmito trees, and the 40-metre-high palo rosa. Across the Iguazu River lies its Brazilian counterpart, Iguaçu National Park; both were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1984. The park would be part of the proposed Trinational Biodiversity Corridor connecting conservation units in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Did You Know?

• The park was created in 1934 to protect the Iguazu Falls.
• The name Iguazú comes from Guaraní 'y guasu', meaning 'large water'.
• The park has an area of 677 km² (261 sq mi).
• The park adjoins the 84,000-hectare Urugua-í Provincial Park, created in 1990.

The Natural Heritage Framework

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972, created a global framework for recognizing places of outstanding cultural or natural significance. Within that framework, natural heritage encompasses a broad spectrum: physical and biological formations, geological and physiographical features, habitats sheltering threatened species of animals and plants, and natural sites deemed important for scientific study, conservation, or natural beauty. Sites aspiring to this recognition must satisfy at least one of ten criteria, with criteria seven through ten reserved specifically for natural properties. Iguazú National Park occupies a place within this category, recognized not as a built monument, a monumental sculpture, or an archaeological site but as a living landscape whose geological and biological character meets the threshold that UNESCO sets for the natural world. The convention's language deliberately avoids singling out one narrow type of natural wonder; instead, it opens the door to a wide range of physical and biological formations, provided the site demonstrates genuine scientific, conservation, or aesthetic value on a global scale.

Argentina's World Heritage Journey

Argentina's relationship with the World Heritage system began when the nation formally accepted the UNESCO convention on 23 August 1978, a step that made its historical and natural sites eligible for international recognition. Since that date, the country has accumulated twelve inscribed World Heritage Sites, with an additional eight properties sitting on the tentative list awaiting potential nomination. The first Argentine site to receive the designation was Los Glaciares National Park, inscribed at the fifth session of the World Heritage Committee in Sydney, Australia, in October 1981. The most recent addition came in 2023 with the ESMA Museum, illustrating that the country's heritage portfolio continues to grow across more than four decades. Of the twelve inscribed sites, five are listed for their natural properties and six for cultural ones. Iguazú National Park belongs to the natural cohort, standing alongside other landscapes that the international community has judged to possess outstanding universal value in the geological, biological, or aesthetic sense defined by the convention.

The Road to Inscription

The path from a natural wonder to a UNESCO World Heritage Site is neither automatic nor instantaneous. Member states are permitted to maintain a tentative list of properties they might one day nominate, and Argentina currently holds eight such entries on its register. Crucially, the rules are strict: a nomination for the World Heritage List will only be accepted if the site was previously included on that tentative list. This means that even a landscape of extraordinary natural beauty cannot simply be submitted; it must first pass through the preliminary stage of being catalogued, assessed, and formally placed on the waiting list. The tentative list thus functions as a gateway, a procedural filter that ensures states have done their preparatory work before asking the international committee to evaluate a site. For Iguazú National Park, this process would have involved the Argentine government identifying the park's qualifying natural features, documenting its scientific and conservation significance, and securing its place on the tentative register before any formal nomination could proceed to the World Heritage Committee for a decision.

Among Argentina's Natural Treasures

Within Argentina's World Heritage portfolio, Iguazú National Park is one of five sites inscribed specifically for their natural properties, a relatively small group within a total of twelve designated locations. The remaining six are recognized for cultural heritage, encompassing architectural works, monumental sculptures, inscriptions, groups of buildings, and archaeological sites. Three of Argentina's twelve sites are shared with other nations: the Jesuit missions are co-listed with Brazil, the Inca road system sites are shared across five countries, and the works of Le Corbusier span six nations. Iguazú, by contrast, stands as a distinctly Argentine natural property, its value rooted in the physical and biological formations, geological character, and natural beauty that the convention's criteria seven through ten are designed to capture. The park's inclusion places it in a small, select company of landscapes that the international community has judged to possess outstanding universal value, a distinction that sets it apart from the many other protected areas in the country that, while ecologically important, have not yet met the threshold for global recognition.