Karst landscapes

Limestone dissolved into towers, sinkholes, and hidden rivers.

El Nido & the Bacuit Archipelago

El Nido, Palawan, Philippines

A bay scattered with dozens of jagged limestone islands, hidden lagoons reached through narrow rock gaps, white beaches, and clear turquoise water — one of the most spectacular karst seascapes in the world.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Guilin & the Li River Karst

Guangxi, southern China

The landscape of Chinese scroll paintings brought to life — thousands of rounded limestone peaks rising from green plains and the winding Li River, mirrored in still water beneath drifting mist.

Karst landscape East Asia

Hạ Long Bay

Gulf of Tonkin, northeastern Vietnam

A jade-green sea studded with nearly 2,000 limestone karst islands and pillars rising sheer from the water — caves, hidden lagoons, and floating villages in one of the world's most beautiful seascapes.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Hpa-An Karst

Kayin State, southeastern Myanmar

A landscape of sheer limestone karst mountains rising straight from emerald rice paddies in southeastern Myanmar, riddled with vast caves full of Buddha images and roosting bats.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Los Haitises

Samaná Bay, Hato Mayor, Monte Plata and Samaná provinces, Dominican Republic

A limestone plateau eaten into hundreds of conical hills of almost identical height — and where it meets Samaná Bay, the hilltops continue offshore as forested islets standing in the water.

Karst landscape Latin America

Masungi Georeserve

Baras, Rizal, Philippines

A dramatic limestone karst landscape barely 90 minutes from Manila, reborn as a conservation project — jagged rock formations, rope courses, and hanging viewpoints woven through a rainforest being restored tree by tree.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Phang Nga Bay

Andaman Sea, southern Thailand

A calm emerald bay between Phuket and Krabi studded with sheer limestone karst islands, sea caves, and hidden tidal lagoons reached by paddling through the rock.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Sagada

Sagada, Mountain Province, Cordillera, Philippines

A cool, pine-clad limestone highland in the heart of the Cordillera, where caves riddle the karst, waterfalls drop into rice terraces, and dawn breaks over a sea of clouds at Kiltepan.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

The Burren

County Clare, Ireland

A silver-grey moonscape of bare limestone pavement in County Clare — one of Europe's finest karst landscapes, where Arctic, alpine and Mediterranean wildflowers bloom together in the cracks of the naked rock.

Karst landscape Europe

Tsingy de Bemaraha

Melaky, western Madagascar

A vast 'forest of stone' — a labyrinth of razor-sharp limestone pinnacles rising in grey blades from the Madagascar wilderness, hiding canyons, caves, and creatures found nowhere else.

Karst landscape Africa

Vang Vieng

Vientiane Province, central Laos

A dramatic landscape of sheer limestone karst peaks rising above the Nam Song river and green rice fields, riddled with caves and blue lagoons, in the hills north of Vientiane.

Karst landscape Southeast Asia

Viñales Valley

Sierra de los Órganos, Pinar del Río Province, western Cuba

Round-topped limestone towers standing up to 300 metres out of flat red tobacco fields in western Cuba — the same tower-karst process that built Ha Long Bay, on an island, and still farmed by hand.

Karst landscape North America