Belize Blue hole World Heritage
Great Blue Hole
124 m below the entrance.
jayhem · CC BY 2.0
The descent
124 metres down, to scale.
The real relief above Great Blue Hole, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
Big Ben (96 m) would fit upside down 1.3 times.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey.
124m
Depth
published (Wikidata)
0m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
27°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
Inside and outside
27 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 27 °C here, in January and in August. The best months to escape the heat are from April to November.
- 26°25°Jan
- 26°26°Feb
- 26°26°Mar
- 27°27°Apr
- 28°28°May
- 29°28°Jun
- 29°28°Jul
- 29°29°Aug
- 29°29°Sep
- 29°28°Oct
- 28°27°Nov
- 27°26°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize
Great Blue Hole is a blue hole in Belize. It goes down 124 m below the entrance. The entrance is at 0 m. It has an underground lake. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Getting there.
- Wild cave: only with caving equipmentNo paths or lights inside. Go only with a caving club or a qualified guide.
- Caye Chapel Airport (CYC)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 68 km in a straight lineCar hire at BZE airport (Belize City)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- other cave entrances within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- viewpoints within 3 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- car parks within 2 km
- information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- bus stops within 2 km
- campsites within 8 km
- hotels and guesthouses within 8 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 26 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 28 | 27 |
| Afternoon | 26 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 28 | 27 |
| Night | 25 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 |
| Rain (mm) | 114 | 63 | 47 | 33 | 118 | 205 | 150 | 164 | 182 | 254 | 202 | 128 |
| Rainy days | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sun hours/day | 6.2 | 7.8 | 8.5 | 8.9 | 8.3 | 7.4 | 8.1 | 8.4 | 7.7 | 6.1 | 5.9 | 6.3 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 26 | 26 | 25 | 114 | 6.2 |
| Feb | 26 | 26 | 26 | 63 | 7.8 |
| Mar | 26 | 26 | 26 | 47 | 8.5 |
| Apr | 27 | 27 | 27 | 33 | 8.9 |
| May | 28 | 28 | 28 | 118 | 8.3 |
| Jun | 29 | 29 | 28 | 205 | 7.4 |
| Jul | 29 | 29 | 28 | 150 | 8.1 |
| Aug | 29 | 29 | 29 | 164 | 8.4 |
| Sep | 29 | 29 | 29 | 182 | 7.7 |
| Oct | 29 | 29 | 28 | 254 | 6.1 |
| Nov | 28 | 28 | 27 | 202 | 5.9 |
| Dec | 27 | 27 | 26 | 128 | 6.3 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (0 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Caves nearby.
Great Blue Hole
Belize
- 124 mDepth
- —Galleries
- 0 mEntrance altitude
- 27 °CInside, all year
Actun Tunichil Muknal
Belize · 143 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 110 mEntrance altitude
- 26 °CInside, all year
Midnight Terror Cave
Belize · 137 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 148 mEntrance altitude
- 25 °CInside, all year
Taam ja’ Blue Hole
Mexico · 159 km
- 420 mDepth
- —Galleries
- 0 mEntrance altitude
- 27 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q86486) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
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