Lorentz National Park

Lorentz National Park
Taman Nasional Lorentz
IUCN category II (national park)
Lorentz National Park
Location	Central Papua, Indonesia
Nearest city	Timika
Coordinates	4°45′S 137°50′E / 4.750°S 137.833°E / -4.750; 137.833
Area	25,056 km2 (9,674 sq mi)
Established	1997
Governing body	Ministry of Environment and Forestry
World Heritage site	1999
Website	tamannasionallorentz.menlhk.go.id
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Criteria	Natural: viii, ix, x
Reference	955
Inscription	1999 (23rd Session)

Lorentz National Park is an Indonesian national park located in the provinces of Central Papua, Highland Papua and South Papua, in the southwest of western New Guinea. With an area of 25,056 km² (9,674 mi²), it is the largest national park in Southeast Asia. In 1999 Lorentz was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

An outstanding example of the biodiversity of New Guinea, Lorentz is one of the most ecologically diverse national parks in the world. It is the only nature reserve in the Asia-Pacific region to contain a full altitudinal array of ecosystems ranging through marine areas, mangroves, tidal and freshwater swamp forest, lowland and montane rainforest, subalpine shrub and grassland, alpine tundra, and equatorial glaciers. At 4884 meters, Puncak Jaya (formerly Carstensz Pyramid) is the tallest mountain between the Himalayas and the Andes.

Birdlife International has called Lorentz Park “probably the single most important reserve in New Guinea”.^[1] It contains five of World Wildlife Fund's "Global 200" ecoregions: Southern New Guinea Lowland Forests; New Guinea Montane Forests; New Guinea Central Range Subalpine Grasslands; New Guinea Mangroves; and New Guinea Rivers and Streams.^[2]

Lorentz Park contains many unmapped and unexplored areas, and is certain to contain many species of plants and animals as yet unknown to Western science. Local communities' ethnobotanical and ethnozoological knowledge of the Lorentz biota is also very poorly documented.

The park is named for Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz, a Dutch explorer who passed through the area on his 1909–10 expedition.