The largest cave in the world. Amazing caves of the world

No human structure can compare with the greatest caves in the world in beauty and grandeur. We offer you a selection of twenty of the most stunning caves and grottoes from all over our planet.

Caves are one of the most amazing creations of nature. Among the many dirty and damp “sheds” there are real palaces and temples, as if created as a mockery of the architectural tricks of people. No human structure can compare with the greatest caves in the world in beauty and grandeur. We offer you a selection of twenty of the most stunning caves and grottoes from all over our planet.

1. Cave of Crystals (Cueva de los Cristales), Mexico

The cave of crystals was discovered in 2000 by the Sanchez brothers, miners who were digging a new tunnel in the mine complex. It is located 300 meters below the city of Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. The cave is unique for the presence of giant selenite crystals. The largest crystal found is 11 m long and 4 m wide, weighing 55 tons. These are some of the largest known crystals. The cave is very hot, temperatures reach 58 °C with a humidity of 90-100%. These factors make it very difficult for people to explore the cave, making necessary use special equipment. Even with equipment, the stay in the cave usually does not exceed 20 minutes.

2. Waitomo Glowworm Cave, New Zealand

Waitomo Caves are truly a masterpiece of nature, on which she has worked for many millions of years. For many centuries, the ocean ruled here, creating bizarre limestone growths and mysterious intricacies of passages. And then the water receded, forming a system of about 150 caves. The most famous of them is Glowworm Cave. It is inhabited by amazing creatures - Arachnocampa Luminosa. These are fireflies that can only be found in New Zealand. Their green-blue glow makes the cave roof look like a starry sky on a frosty night.

3. Blue Grotto (Grotto Azzurra), Italy

This is a beautiful cave, accessible only from the sea. The name “Blue Grotto” comes from the bright blue color of its waters. The entrance to the cave is very small and lets in a small amount of light, which gives the water its bright color.

4. Vatnajokull Glacier Cave, Iceland

Sunlight, scattering across the surface of the Svínafellsjökull glacier, paints on the arches of the ice cave amazing paintings, creating the illusion of presence on deep sea. The depth of the underground passage does not exceed 50 meters, and the width of the cave is only 10 meters. During the winter months, crackling sounds can be heard inside due to the movement of the glacier.

Such pure azure and blue shades are the result of the absence of air bubbles in the ice. You can see colored ice under certain weather conditions; one of them is the absence or minimal amount of snow on the surface. The rich sky blue ice is best seen in January and February; It is during this period that shades of azure, framed by snow cover, look fantastic.

You can get into the cave only in the winter months: narrow ice passages are accessible to tourists only with the onset of frost. At other times, being here can be dangerous; melting ice vaults often collapse under the snow mass.

5. Phraya Nakhon, Thailand

It's not actually a cave, but a huge valley that is 65 meters deep and 50 meters wide, with overhanging walls covered with plants and stalactites. At certain times of the day, light enters, illuminating the small temple

6. Marble Caves of Patagonia, Chile

Despite their name, they are made of ordinary limestone, but there is an opinion that in the depths of the caves there are pure deposits of marble. The walls of the Chilean landmark have a surprisingly beautiful bright blue color, and blue water lake doubles the impression of what you see. It is also worth mentioning that the caves consist of many labyrinths and tunnels, the creation of which was worked hard by the coastal waves.

7. Glacier caves in the area of ​​Mutnovsky volcano, Russia

A small and very beautiful snow cave on the slope of the Mutnovsky volcano.

8. Dongzhong Cave, China

Dongzhong Cave (the name of which is simply translated as “cave”) is located in the village of Mao in Chinese province Guizhou. Since 1984, the cave has been equipped as a primary school.

9. Fingal's Cave, Scotland

A famous sea cave, washed out of the rock by sea water, on the island of Staffa, part of the Inner Hebrides group of islands. The walls are composed of vertical hexagonal basalt columns 69 meters deep and 20 meters high. For three centuries it has been a place of artistic pilgrimage and has inspired the work of many famous artists, musicians and writers.

10. Reed Flute Cave, China

Reed Flute Cave (Ludi Yan) is an amazing creation of nature located in Guilin (China). A special type of reed grows around the cave, from which in the old days the best flutes in all of China were made; it was this fact that served as the basis for such a beautiful name. The Ludi Yan Cave, like the Waitomo Cave, has lighting, only not natural, but “artificial” - artificial. With its help, the Chinese successfully emphasize the beauty of nature’s impeccable creation. Multi-colored lights playfully color stalactites and other bizarre rock formations, making the cave even brighter and more fabulous.

11. Fantastic Pit at Ellison’s Cave, Georgia, USA

If you are an extreme sports enthusiast and also an amateur caver, then Ellison Cave is ideal for you, namely its bizarre 179-meter deep shaft.

12. Kyaut Sae Cave in Myanmar

Few people know about this cave, but nevertheless it is stunning both for its size and for the fact that it houses a Buddhist temple.

13. Son Doong Cave, Vietnam

The largest cave in the world. It is located in Central Vietnam, in Quang Binh province, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, 500 kilometers south of Hanoi and 40 km from the provincial center - Dong Hoi. This cave has been known to local residents since 1991; in April 2009, it was discovered by a group of British speleologists. The cave has an underground river that floods some parts of the cave during the rainy season.

14. Ice Cave Eisriesenwelt, Austria

The Eisriesenwelt caves are the most big system ice caves on our planet, available for viewing. Translated, Eisriesenvelt means “giant ice world.” The caves are located in the Alps in Austria at an altitude of 1641 meters and consist of 30 thousand cubic meters. meters of ice. These caves were formed by the waters of the Salzach River, which over thousands of years eroded the limestone rocks. Currently, the river bed is located below the entrance to the caves.

The Eisriesenwelt caves were discovered by accident back in 1849. For a long time, only hunters and poachers knew about them. The official opening date of the Eisriesenwelt caves is considered to be 1879, when the Austrian naturalist from Salzburg, Anton von Posselt-Czorich, first penetrated 200 meters deep into the caves. A year later, he published a detailed report about his discovery in a mountaineering magazine, but this information did not arouse sufficient interest.

15. Ordinskaya Cave, Russia

Orda Cave is the longest underwater gypsum cave in Russia and one of the longest in the world. This place is a real paradise for divers. The cave begins with the Crystal Grotto. In the northwestern corner of this grotto there is Lake Ledyanoe. The passage on the left will lead to the next grotto - the Ice Palace. Here is Lake Main, and a little further away is Lake Teploe. Through these lakes, divers enter the mysterious underwater part of the cave. The water here is extremely clean, transparent, bluish in color and very cold (+ 4 degrees)

16. Carlsbad Caverns, USA

Under the arches of the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico hide endless labyrinths of halls, tunnels and corridors, the main inhabitants of which are bats. The charm of the Carlsbad Caverns becomes more charming and mysterious with the advent of dusk. The park and caves got their name in honor of the nearby city of Carlsbad.

17. Barton Creek Cave, Belize

This cave not only has extraordinary natural beauty, but is also a living witness to the household items of the ancient Mayans, who inhabited this territory more than 2000 years ago. In it you can see many grandiose stalactites and stalagmites, ancient jugs and religious bowls of the May Indians, traces of religious human sacrifices

18. Jeita Grotto Caves, Lebanon

a complex of two caves in Lebanon 20 kilometers north of Beirut. The upper cave was discovered in 1836 by William Thomson, and the lower cave was discovered in 1958 by Lebanese speleologists. The length of the Upper Cave is 2200 meters, but only a part of it, which is 750 meters long, is open to tourists. The Upper Cave has three halls, each of which reaches a height of 100 meters or more. There are unique underground reservoirs, very beautiful crevices, various stalagmites and stalactites. The length of the Lower Cave is much larger than the Upper Cave and is equal to 6900 meters

19. Kango Caves, South Africa

Cango Caves, unofficially called a wonder of the world. The caves are famous for their " Organ Hall“- stalactites descending along the walls form here something reminiscent of a large organ, which, in combination with music and lighting effects, makes an indelible impression on visitors

20. Aven Armand Cave, France

A special funicular takes visitors 50 meters deep through a tunnel that is 200 meters long. There suddenly turns out to be a huge hall that could easily fit Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Caves are underground cavities that communicate with the surface by one or more

inlets. The largest caves have complex systems of passages and halls, often with a total length of up to several tens of kilometers.

Today we will visit some mysterious caves.

Limestone cave Tham Lod. This is one of the most ancient caves in Thailand. It is very popular among archaeologists. A human skeleton that was more than twenty thousand years old was found here. Visitors to the cave will be able to see the dwelling primitive people. Caves were generally used by ancient people as comfortable dwellings.

Inside this cave, the walls are covered with massive formations over 20 meters high, which make you feel very insignificant in this world. There is no artificial lighting in the cave, so you need to move around inside with a flashlight. The very name of the cave - Nam Lod, which translated from Thai means “water passing through” - speaks about its essence.

Cave on the beach in New Zealand.

In most caves, the air is breathable due to natural circulation, although there are caves in which you can only be in gas masks. For example, guano deposits can poison the air. However, in the vast majority of natural caves, air exchange with the surface is quite intense.

Cave under Uluwatu Temple, Bali.

View of northern lights from a cave in Northern Norway.

In addition to caves that have access to the surface and are accessible to direct study by humans, there are closed underground cavities in the earth’s crust. The deepest underground cavity (2952 meters) was discovered by drilling on the coast of Cuba

And this is just a cave and a beautiful lake. Unfortunately, the photographer forgot to leave the name of the area.

This is, rather, not a cave, but an artificial bridge in Morocco.

Castor cave Olsztyn in Poland. Caves according to their origin can be divided into five groups: tectonic, erosional, glacial, volcanic and, finally, the most large group- karst. Most of these caves are like this. It is karst caves that have the greatest extent and depth. Karst caves are formed due to the dissolution of rocks by water, so they are found only where soluble rocks occur: limestone, marble, dolomite, chalk, as well as gypsum and salt.

Reed Flute Cave in China. This is an iconic place in Guilin, China, located in a picturesque area with karst formations. This natural limestone cave gets its name from the reeds growing around it, from which local residents made themselves ancient wind instruments.

Read more in the article “Reed Flute Cave in China.”

Caves appear in many fantastic works(and, both in fantasy and in science fiction). Caves (or rather bunkers) in science fiction mainly serve as shelters after a global catastrophe that made impossible life on a surface. In fantasy, caves are inhabited by gnomes, kobolds, goblins, dragons; V role playing games they often play the role of dungeons. In Russians folk tales among the inhabitants of the caves are the Mistress of the Copper Mountain and the Serpent Gorynych.

Ice Cave at Matthiessen State Park, Illinois.

Krubera-Voronya is the deepest (at the beginning of 2014) cave in the world (depth 2196 meters), located in the Arabica mountain range in Abkhazia. The entrance to the cave is located at an altitude of about 2250 m above sea level in the Orto-Balagan tract. A karst cave of a subvertical type is a series of wells connected by climbers and galleries. The deepest plumbs: 115, 110, 152 m:

Among the most famous literary heroes who ended up in the caves: Tom Sawyer along with Becky Thatcher, as well as Bilbo Baggins.

Cave of Crystals, Iceland. You can enter the cave from the shore, through a 7-meter hole. The tunnel gradually narrows, and at the end its height is no more than 1.2 meters. Ice caves are generally unstable and can collapse at any time. They are only safe to visit in winter, when cold temperatures cause the ice to freeze heavily. Cracking sounds are constantly heard in the cave. They are heard not because the cave is about to collapse, but because the cave is moving along with the glacier itself. Every time the glacier moves a millimeter, loud sounds are heard.

Prehistoric people used caves all over the world as homes. Even more often, animals settled in caves. Many animals died in trap caves starting from vertical wells.

Cave and view of Gibraltar.

Marble Mountains - beautiful and mysterious place near the city of Da Nang, Vietnam. Huyen Khong cave with statues and altars inside.

The longest cave in the world, Mammoth Cave (USA), is a karst cave built in limestone. It has a total length of passages of more than 600 km. The length of the explored part of the cave system is more than 587 km. In the surveyed part there are 225 underground passages, about 20 large halls and more than 20 deep shafts:

The extremely slow evolution of caves, their constant climate, protection from outside world have preserved for us a huge amount archaeological finds. This is pollen from fossil plants, bones of long-extinct animals (cave bear, cave hyena, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros), cave drawings ancient people.

Luray Caverns in Virginia. There is even an underground organ.

The cave monastery is located in Moldova. The archaeological complex “Old Orhei” is located 60 km northeast of Chisinau.

Rainbow and frozen waterfall in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although the living world of caves, as a rule, is not very rich (excluding the entrance part where sunlight reaches), nevertheless, some animals live in caves or even only in caves. First of all, these are bats; many of their species use caves as daily shelter or for wintering. Moreover, bats sometimes fly into very remote and hard-to-reach corners, perfectly navigating the narrow labyrinthine passages.

Cave system in Halong Bay in Vietnam.

Cave off the coast of San Francisco, California.

Birds, sunlight and temple. Batu Caves is a complex of cave hills and Hindu shrines in the Gombak district, 13 km from the center of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. (Photo by Danny Xeero) The Batu Caves were created by nature more than 400 million years ago. In the 19th century, an Indian merchant built a temple to the god Muruga in this secluded place.

On December 27, 1966, the Cave of Swallows in Mexico, the largest well cave in the world, was discovered. In terms of depth, the Cave of Swallows ranks 2nd in Mexico and 11th on Earth. We decided to talk about ten of the most unusual caves in the world.

The cave is of karst origin, located in Mexico, in the state of San Louis Potosi. She seems smaller than she actually is. The shape of the cave resembles a bottle: the entrance to the cave is 55 meters, and in depth it expands to 130–160 meters. The depth reaches 376 meters, which is comparable to the height of the Empire State Building (381 meters without the spire). The cave could easily accommodate the famous New York skyscraper Chrysler Building, whose height reaches 319 meters. The cave is home to black swifts, but the name is derived from the Spanish word Golondrinas (“swallow”).

In the morning, flocks of birds fly in a spiral, gaining altitude until they reach the exit of the cave. In order not to violate quiet life swifts, descent into the cave is allowed only at certain times: from 12:00 to 16:00. In addition, colliding with a flock of birds during a free flight is very dangerous: the cave, which has become a Mecca for fans of extreme sports, is a serious test even for very experienced and physically trained base jumpers. The descent into the cave takes about 20 minutes using climbing equipment and about 10 seconds when skydiving, and the parachute can only be opened at a strictly defined time: at 6–7 seconds of the fall. The climb to the top takes about two hours and requires good mountaineering and physical training.

Carlsbad Cave

Carlsbad Cave, which is 250 million years old, is part of a chain of 80 karst caves in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico, USA. The depth of the cave is 339 meters, the total length of all passages and halls is about 12 kilometers.

The largest hall is shaped like the letter T with dimensions in two directions of 610 and 335 meters, a height of up to 87 meters and an area of ​​5.7 hectares. The cave is a system of huge halls and galleries and is famous for the special beauty and elegance of its mineral formations. Carlsbad Cave was formed during the deposition of thick layers of limestone in the rock. This limestone formed small cracks into which water seeped, dissolving softer minerals and forming caves and tunnels.

In all the caves of the Carlsbad chain, stalactites formed fantastic figures: Bashful Elephant (Bashful Elephant) looks like an elephant turning its back to the passage, Rock of Edges (Century Rock) is a lonely giant stalagmite. The caves have become a haven for a colony of bats: at dusk, the entrance to the caves becomes black due to the nocturnal inhabitants flying away to hunt.

Cave of Crystals

It is located in the Mexican desert of the state of Chiahua at a depth of 300 meters and was found while drilling a local mine. The cave is famous for its giant crystals of selenite, a mineral that is a structural type of gypsum. The largest crystal found is 11 meters long and 4 meters wide, weighing 55 tons. These are the largest natural crystals ever found on the planet. The cave is also known for its unusual climate: it is very hot here. Temperatures reach 58 °C with a humidity of 90–100%, which makes exploring the cave very difficult. Even with equipment, the stay in the cave usually does not exceed 20 minutes. Access to the cave is open only to scientists.

Han Son Doong Cave

The largest cave on planet Earth, Han Son Dung, which means “Mountain River Cave,” is located in Vietnam. It was discovered only in 2009 by a group of British researchers. The largest hall of the cave has a total length of more than 5 thousand meters, the total length of the cave is supposedly 9 thousand meters. The width of the halls and corridors is 100 meters, and the height reaches 200 meters.

The cave is unusual in that many years ago, holes appeared in the roof of the cave, through which light and plant seeds penetrated into the underground halls. Now in the cave you can find a real jungle. In addition, another interesting rare phenomenon attracts speleologists: cave pearls form in the cave. This rare type of pearl grows on its own in puddles of limewater. Its composition differs little from traditional pearls produced by mollusks, but it does not have a beautiful mother-of-pearl luster.

Photo: traveltimes.ru

Chasm of Three Bridges

Jurassic limestone cave, a sinkhole in Lebanon 255 meters deep, 160 million years old. The cave owes its name to the fact that the opposite walls of the abyss are connected by three bridges, each of which hangs over the other. A powerful waterfall passes through them. Over thousands of years, water from the stream slowly washed away the limestone and gradually destroyed the cave arches. After the appearance of the upper bridge it for a long time was destroyed by vertical and circumferential erosion, which, combined with a series of landslides, created the middle and lower bridges.

Fingal's Cave

The famous sea cave is located on the tiny islet of Staffa in Scotland. Rains and sea ​​water They drilled a whole system of caves on it, the largest of which is named after the giant Fingal, the hero of the Irish epic, who built a dam connecting Scotland and Ireland.

The main hall of Fingal's Cave is 75 meters long, 20 meters wide and 14 meters high, and the entrance is so narrow that it is impossible to get there by boat. In Gaelic, the cave was called Uam Bin, “Cave of Melodies”: the huge hall of the cave repeats the sounds of the surf many times, and the whole cave literally sings. The following fact is interesting: when famous author"The Wedding March" composer Felix Mendelssohn visited the cave in 1829, he was so amazed by the amazing play of sounds and echoes that it inspired him to create an overture called "The Hebrides, or Fingal's Cave."

The cave is also famous for its impressive basalt colonnade of amazingly regular shape. Most columns have a 6-sided shape, but there are also 3-sided and 8-sided ones. like this unusual shape they acquired through a long crystallization process volcanic lava. As the legend says, these are the remains of piles driven into the bottom of the Irish Sea by the giant Fingal.

Marble Caves of Chile

Marble Caves are the main attraction of Lago General Carrera in Chile and one of the most beautiful places in Patagonia. They are also called the Marble Cathedral (Marble Cathedral or Las Cavernas de Marmol), which is a labyrinth of beautiful geological formations. In fact, the walls of the cave labyrinth are not made of marble, but of limestone. Numerous tunnels and columns have been formed by wave action over the past 6,200 years.

The most famous caves are the Marble Cathedral, the Marble Cave and the Marble Chapel. All three grottoes are part of the peninsula and were previously completely flooded with water. The glacier that filled the lake melted over time, the water level dropped significantly, revealing to the world marble labyrinths partially filled with turquoise water. Tourists can explore the caves by small boat or kayak, but only if the weather is good and completely calm.

Reed Flute Cave

Reed Flute Cave is an amazingly beautiful cave near the Chinese city of Guilin. One of the largest karst caves in the region, reaching 240 meters in length. The cave got its name due to the plants growing around it. special type reed, from which some of the best flutes in all of China have been made since ancient times. The age of the cave is at least 180 million years, it was formed due to the destruction of quartz rocks by water. The cave is famous for stalactites, stalagmites and other bizarre rock formations, and thanks to the illumination and reflection in the underground lake, one gets the impression of frozen actions, to which the Chinese gave poetic names: “Crystal Palace”, “Dragon Tower”, “Pine on the Snow”, “Dawn in Lion’s Square” Grove", "Red Threshold" and so on.

Dragon Cave

The Dragon Cave is located in Kastoria, in northwestern Greece. The cave is considered unique and is the only cave in Greece with 7 fresh underground lakes and 10 halls of various sizes (the largest is 45x17 meters) and 5 tunnels. The depth of the cave reaches 600 meters, but speleologists have not yet advanced further than 300 meters. The cave got its name thanks to the legend of a dragon who zealously guarded the gold mine. He scorched everyone who gathered the courage to sneak into his domain and killed them with flames from his mouth. In addition, the entrance to the cave resembles the mouth of a dragon. The cave is also famous for its special air circulation system and special microclimate.

Jeita Grotto

Jeita Grotto is a complex of two separate but interconnected karst limestone caves with a total length of almost 9 kilometers. The caves are located in the Nahr al-Kalb valley in the settlement of Jeita, 18 kilometers north of the Lebanese capital Beirut. Caves and grottoes have been known since Paleolithic times. The lower cave was discovered in 1836 by priest William Thomson, an American missionary. It can only be reached by boat, as the cave is filled by an underground river that provides drinking water to more than one million Lebanese. The upper galleries were discovered in 1958 by Lebanese speleologists. They consist of a series of individual chambers, the largest of which reaches a height of 120 meters.

Here is also one of the largest stalactites in the world with a height of 8.2 meters. In one of the caves, the remains of an ancient foundry were found, where swords were supposedly produced. The giant stalactites of the caves create beautiful compositions, thanks to which the Jeita Caves were included in the 28 finalists of the “Seven New Wonders of Nature” competition.

Deep underground, where the sun does not shine and people rarely appear, the unknown lurks, mysterious world, where amazing flickering insects live, incredible gems are hidden, stone formations of magical shapes and all sizes, marble columns, halls and grottoes, the creator of which is not man, but nature itself.

Blue Grotto, Italy

The Blue Grotto is practically the emblem of the Italian island of Capri. This magnificent sea cave, located on the coast of the island, is known to all tourists.

The Blue Grotto is unique in that its walls glow and sparkle with blue and emerald hues. This breathtaking glow comes from two light sources: one is a small cave entrance located above the water, where bright daylight enters, and the other is a large, wide hole that is submerged in the water, from which a muted bluish light streams into the cave.

Cave of Crystals, Mexico

First, in 1910, the Cave of Swords was discovered, which is located just above the Cave of Giant Crystals. In the Cave of Swords, the crystals are much smaller, approximately one meter long, and the temperature is colder. This may be why the crystals in the upper cave stopped growing.

The cave of giant crystals was discovered in 2000. Its level is covered with completely transparent faceted blocks. The cave contains the largest natural crystals ever found anywhere in the world. The largest crystal discovered here reached 12 meters in length and was 4 meters in diameter. The usual temperature in the cave is 50-58 degrees Celsius, and the humidity is 90-99%. Due to such conditions, the cave remains relatively unexplored and people without special equipment can survive in it for a maximum of 10 minutes.

Krubera Cave, Abkhazia

Krubera Cave, or Crow Cave, is located in the Caucasus Mountains and is the deepest known cave in the world. Its depth exceeds two thousand meters. The Crow Cave is called the Crow Cave because, while exploring it, speleologists had to drive away entire flocks of crows from the entrance.

Fingal's Cave, Scotland

This is a sea cave located on the uninhabited island of Staffa in Scotland. It is formed entirely from hexagonal columns of basalt and was washed into the coastal rock by the flow of water. Inside, the cave resembles a Gothic temple, which is only emphasized by the size of the grotto, the high ceiling and the sounds created by the waves rolling onto the rock.

Ice cave Eisriesenwelt, Austria

The name of the cave means "World of Ice Giants". It is a naturally formed limestone cave and is the largest of its kind. The Eisriesenwelt extends for 42 kilometers and falls 400 meters deep. Ice remains there all year round. Since the entrance to the cave is open all year, cold winds freeze the snow that falls inside. During the summer, the ice layers are preserved and do not melt due to the cold winds that circulate inside the cave.

Although the cave is relatively long, only the first thousand meters are open to tourists and are covered with ice. Most of the cave is simple limestone.

Puerto Princesa Underwater River, Philippines

Puerto Princesa is an underground river named one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature. She is recognized as an object world heritage UNESCO.

In 2010, a group of ecologists and geologists discovered that this underground river has a second floor and in the cave there are many small waterfalls and a hall with a 300-meter dome, on which you can see not only sinter formations of various shapes, but also large bats. The river divides into several streams and channels and goes deep into the cave, where tourists can no longer access due to lack of oxygen.

Mammoth Cave National Park, USA

Mammoth Cave National Park is the largest cave system in the world and will likely remain so forever because surpassing the 52,830-hectare record is nearly impossible. The second largest cave system barely reaches half of this area.

The national park offers visitors several cave tours. The longest of them takes six hours and passes through the main attractions. Guests of the park also have the opportunity to go on “wild” tours, where they can see unlit parts of caves, climb dirty and dusty tunnels, and examine sinter formations in the light of lanterns shaking in their hands.

Skocjanske Jam, Slovenia

This limestone cave system is one of the most remarkable underground phenomena in the karst region of Slovenia. This cave also takes its place among the most important caves in the world and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The international scientific community also considers it to be a natural treasure of the planet.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, USA

This is one of the most visited cave parks in the United States. The attraction of the caves is Big hall- a huge grotto made of natural limestone, a kilometer long, 190 meters wide and 80 meters high.

The caves offer numerous tourist programs, including the popular bats. They are watched at sunset, when they fly out of the depths of the caves, and at dawn, when they fly back. You can even stay in a cave overnight, sleeping in tents or without them, but you need permission to do this.

Waitomo Cave, New Zealand

This cave is popular all over the world due to the fact that the fireflies living in it turn the ceiling of the cave into a starry sky that is directly overhead, literally.

Fireflies arachna luminosa live only in New Zealand and only in this cave. They are the size of a normal mosquito, and millions of them live in Weimoto Cave. The cave tour begins with a boat ride through an underground river where the cave ceiling is lit only by these spectacular glowing gnats.

Caves are natural voids under the surface of the earth or in the depths of mountains, the study of which is the science of speleology. Many caves look incredibly beautiful, others attract with their bizarre formations, and others with their colossal sizes.

1. Son Doong (Vietnam)

The largest cave in the world is located in the Vietnamese province of Quang Binh, within national park Phong Nha-Kebang. In 1991, peasant Ho Han first found the entrance to a cave lost in the jungle, however, he was afraid to go down there because the descent was too steep and the roar of water coming from there. Only in 2009, British speleologists from G. Limbert’s group were able to go down into the cave and begin studying it. Later they announced the official discovery of the Son Doong cave, and also that it is the largest in the world in size.
The width of this cave turned out to be 150 meters, and the height was even greater - about 200 meters. A fast underground river flows through the cave, which completely floods some areas during the monsoon season. The cave has its own climate, low-growing jungle grows, and due to the temperature difference above, a kind of clouds are formed. Above the giant cavity in the ground, gaps have formed in two places through which sunlight can penetrate inside, which makes it possible for trees up to 3 meters high to grow here.
The fauna and flora of Shondong is an interesting subject for research by scientists. Many species of plants grow in the cave; species of animals that were unusual for such an unexpected place as the cave were spotted: monkeys, flying foxes, hornbills.

2. Lubang Nasib Bagus (Malaysia)

This cave contains the largest grotto on the planet, Sarawak, which is 600 m long, 100 m high, and 415 m wide. The volume of the entire Lubang Nasib Bagus cave system reaches 25 million cubic meters. The cave was discovered by a trio of British speleologists in 1981 while exploring a karst massif in Gunung Mulu National Park. The researchers entered the cave, moving up the river flowing from it. There they found themselves in a grotto, the arches of which could not be reached by the light of the powerful lanterns they had. It immediately became clear that the size of the cave was colossal. The cave could fit 50 large airliners.

3. Miao (China)

The next huge cave is located in China. Above it is a hilly area. You can also get to the Miao Cave by moving along the bed of an underground river. This cave was discovered in 1989 by a joint expedition in which the Chinese and Europeans participated. Miao belongs to a huge network of caves located in Ziyun Getu He Chuandong National Park. To determine the boundaries of the cave arches it was necessary to use laser scanning. Research has shown the volume of this cave to be 10.78 million cubic meters. m.

The first traces of human presence on Abkhazian soil are more than 300,000 years old. Abkhazia boasts a unique combination of mountainous terrain and...

4. Eisriesenwelt (Austria)

Eisriesenwelt is the world's largest ice cave and maintains sub-zero temperatures all year round. The cave stretches for 42 kilometers, descending to a depth of 407 meters. People have long suspected its existence, but it was discovered by naturalist Anton von Posselt-Kzorich in 1879. It was carefully examined by local speleologist Alexander von Merck, who died in the First World War. world war and buried in one of the niches of this cave. Nowadays, Eisriesenwelt Cave has become a prominent tourist attraction. The very first excursion here was held in 1920, and today it is visited by about 150,000 people from May to October, but in winter the entrance is closed due to the danger of avalanches.

5. Red Cave (Crimea)

About a third of the territory of Crimea is dotted with caves, so it is not surprising that there is also room for a huge cave system that stretches for 25 kilometers. On the Crimean Peninsula there is a chain of underground grottoes of different sizes and looking differently, and they are connected by a difficult and confusing labyrinth. The area of ​​the Red Cave is 52,000 square meters. m. True, tourists here are allowed no further than 500 m into the cave, and even then only in the presence of a guide.
This cave invariably attracts the attention of speleologists who examine the bizarre deposits on the cave walls and huge stalagmites. A river flows through the cave with very clean water- so transparent that its presence can sometimes be guessed only by the glare of light.

6. Mammoth Cave (USA)

This is the longest cave in the world, located in Kentucky, in the national park of the same name. Its total length is over 587 km. But the real length of the cave is even greater; this is only what scientists have been able to explore to date. So far, 20 huge halls and 225 underground passages have been discovered in the cave system. The name of the cave was given for its enormous size, and there is no connection with prehistoric extinct animals. Along one of the branches of the cave flows the large Echo River, which is 60 m wide and in some places up to 10 m deep.
Scientists have suggested that this cave appeared over 10 million years ago. The Indians knew about its existence, and proof of this was the discovery of Indian burials with mummies in the depths of the cave. Pale-faced Americans discovered a cave in late XVIII century.

7. Sac Actun (Mexico)

This grandiose cave, located on the Yucatan Peninsula, differs from others in that it is almost completely flooded. A large river of the same name flows through it. By the way, the name translates as “white cave”. The length of this cave system exceeds 317 km, of which only 5 km are not flooded. This large caves, stretched out in a chain and interconnected by transitions. Speleologists began studying it only in 1987, but since then they have succeeded in researching no more than one percent of its components. It is impossible to know how many secrets this cave, formed 65 million years ago and which saw dinosaurs, hides.

8. Krubera-Voronya (Abkhazia)

If this is not the largest cave in the world in terms of volume or length, it is certainly the deepest cave explored by speleologists. It is located on the territory of Abkhazia, in the Arabica mountain range. This cave was first discovered by an expedition of speleologists from the Institute of Geography named after. V. Bagrationi at the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR in 1960. The entrance to the cave is located high in the mountains - at a level of 2250 meters. This is a so-called subvertical type cave, that is, it consists of a number of wells connected to each other by galleries and manholes. In 2014, another entrance to the Krubera-Voronya cave was discovered at approximately the same height (2253 meters). Having descended 200 meters below the entrance, the cave is divided into two main branches: the Main and Nekuibyshevskaya. Those even lower are divided into many smaller branches. Thanks to the higher second entrance, the world record for the depth of the cave system also rose slightly, reaching a value of 2199 meters.

9. Sarma (Abkhazia)

Another cave, also located in Abkhazia, and next to Krubera-Voronya - in the Arabica mountain range, is also one of the deepest in the world. It was discovered by Sergei Shipitsyn, and it was relatively recently - in 1990. The entrance to this cave is located a little lower - at an altitude of 2150 meters above sea level. At the moment, it has been possible to establish its depth at 1830 meters. Both caves are formed by soft gypsum and limestone rocks. Many Russian speleologists studied this cave: Anatoly Bezverkhy, Rafail Safin, Alexander Verbitsky, Vasily Sukhachev, Artyom Kalachev, Alexander Osintsev, Andrey Zakrepa, Vladimir Plotnikov, Pavel Rudko, Evgeny Koreshnikov and many others.

Located in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia is small but very beautiful country. Georgians themselves love their homeland very much and glorify it in wonderful...

10. Optimistic Cave (Ukraine)

This huge cave received its optimistic name because other speleologists, who were skeptical about the possibility of studying it, began to call their Lvov colleagues who advocated it optimists. But the latter turned out to be right - since the discovery of the cave in 1966 by Lviv speleologists, over 200 expeditions have been sent to it. Initially, it was thought that it was just a crack no more than 3 meters long, but when they were able to penetrate deeper into it, it became clear that this was one of the largest caves in the world.
This cave is located on the territory of the Ternopil region. Optimistic Cave became the longest gypsum cave in the world. So far we have been able to explore 230 kilometers, but the actual length of the cave is much greater, and many more secrets hidden underground await researchers.