In our rapidly developing world, untouched natural spaces have become increasingly rare treasures. These pristine environments offer a glimpse into Earth as it once was—before human infrastructure, pollution, and development transformed much of the planet.
The value of these unspoiled areas extends far beyond their breathtaking beauty; they serve as crucial biodiversity hotspots, carbon sinks, and living laboratories for scientific research. Here is a list of 20 remarkable wildernesses that remain largely untouched by human hands.
These wildernesses offer a window into nature at its purest and most powerful.
Fiordland National Park (New Zealand)
Fiordland’s dramatic landscape was carved by glaciers over 100,000 years, creating deep fjords flanked by towering cliffs that plunge directly into mirror-like waters. This remote corner of New Zealand’s South Island receives over 22 feet of rainfall annually, supporting ancient temperate rainforests draped in moss and inhabited by unique wildlife found nowhere else.
Access remains extremely limited, with most of the park’s 4,633 square miles traversable only by helicopter or multi-day wilderness treks.
Namib Desert (Namibia)
The world’s oldest desert stretches along Namibia’s Atlantic coast, creating a surreal landscape of towering dunes reaching over 1,000 feet. This hyper-arid environment has remained largely unchanged for 55 million years, forcing its sparse inhabitants to evolve extraordinary adaptations to survive the extreme conditions.
Morning fog rolling in from the ocean provides the primary moisture source for the desert’s surprisingly diverse ecosystem, home to endemic species like the bizarre Welwitschia plant, which can live for over 1,500 years.
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The Northern Patagonian Ice Field (Chile)
This vast expanse of continental ice covers over 1,600 square miles in the Andes Mountains of Chile, forming one of the largest ice fields outside the polar regions. Surrounded by pristine temperate rainforests and crystal-clear lakes, this wilderness remains largely inaccessible, protected by natural barriers and conservation laws.
The ice field feeds numerous glaciers that have carved spectacular valleys and fjords over millennia, creating one of Earth’s most dynamic and untouched landscapes.
Tarkine Wilderness (Australia)
Australia’s Tarkine contains the largest tract of temperate rainforest in the Southern Hemisphere, a remnant of the ancient Gondwana supercontinent. This 1,600-square-mile wilderness hosts countless rare and endangered species, including Tasmanian devils and spotted-tail quolls, amid untouched forests, wild rivers, and dramatic coastlines.
The region’s isolation has preserved its ecological integrity and aboriginal cultural heritage, with evidence of human presence dating back over 40,000 years.
Svalbard Archipelago (Norway)
Located between Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard represents one of the world’s northernmost land masses and remains one of Europe’s last great wildernesses. These islands are dominated by glaciers covering 60% of the land, dramatic mountains, and arctic tundra supporting polar bears, foxes, and reindeer.
Despite hosting small research communities, vast areas remain untouched, preserved by harsh conditions and strict environmental regulations limiting human activity throughout the archipelago.
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Great Bear Rainforest (Canada)
This temperate rainforest stretches along British Columbia’s coast for 250 miles and is the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest left on Earth. The wilderness spans 21 million acres of old-growth forests, pristine watersheds, and remote islands virtually untouched by industrial development.
This ecosystem supports rare spirit bears (white, black bears), wolves that swim between islands to hunt, and some of the largest trees in North America, some reaching ages of over 1,000 years.
Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia)
This remote peninsula in Russia’s Far East features an extraordinary concentration of active volcanoes, geysers, and thermal springs amid untamed wilderness. Virtually inaccessible during the Soviet era as a military zone, Kamchatka’s isolation preserved its pristine state, allowing brown bears, wolves, and sea eagles to thrive in remarkable densities.
The peninsula’s rivers support the world’s greatest diversity of salmonid fish, maintaining complex food webs that remain largely intact and functioning as they have for millennia.
Central Suriname Nature Reserve (Suriname)
This massive protected area covers approximately 11% of the South American nation of Suriname, preserving 6.2 million acres of pristine tropical rainforest. The reserve protects an unbroken expanse of ecosystems, ranging from lowland forests to mountainous terrain, including the Juliana Top peak.
Indigenous knowledge remains vital to understanding this wilderness, and new species continue to be discovered during limited scientific expeditions, highlighting how much remains unknown about this truly pristine environment.
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Scoresby Sound (Greenland)
The world’s largest fjord system cuts deep into Greenland’s eastern coast, creating a labyrinth of waterways surrounded by towering mountains and massive glaciers. This remote wilderness spans over 14,000 square miles of water and land, remaining ice-bound for much of the year and visited by only the most intrepid travelers.
The sound’s isolation has preserved intact arctic ecosystems that support narwhals, polar bears, and musk oxen in a landscape that appears much as it did thousands of years ago.
Darien Gap (Panama/Colombia)
The only break in the 19,000-mile Pan-American Highway exists because of this virtually impenetrable wilderness straddling the Panama- Colombia border. Dense rainforests, swamps, and mountains combine to create a formidable natural barrier that has resisted development for centuries.
This 60-mile stretch hosts extraordinary biodiversity, including rare harpy eagles and jaguars, while remaining one of the least-explored regions in the Western Hemisphere despite its relatively small size.
Sayadiyikta Mountains (Mongolia)
Mongolia’s remote western mountains represent one of Asia’s last truly pristine wilderness areas, far from population centers or industrial development. This rugged landscape of peaks, valleys, and high-altitude lakes hosts endangered snow leopards, argali sheep, and ibex across terrain that remains largely unexplored by outsiders.
Local nomadic peoples maintain traditional lifestyles that have minimal impact on the environment, preserving ecological processes that have functioned uninterrupted for thousands of years.
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Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness (United States)
The largest contiguous wilderness area in the continental United States spans 2.3 million acres of rugged mountains, deep canyons, and wild rivers in central Idaho. Named for the Salmon River—once considered so treacherous that travelers couldn’t return upstream—this wilderness contains no roads and minimal human infrastructure.
The landscape supports wolves, mountain lions, and one of the few remaining salmon runs in the interior West, maintaining ecological connections severed throughout most of North America.
Wapusk National Park (Canada)
Located along Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba, this wilderness protects one of the world’s largest polar bear denning areas amid a landscape of arctic tundra and boreal forest. The park’s name comes from the Cree word for ‘white bear,’ reflecting its importance to wildlife and indigenous culture in this remote corner of the Canadian Shield.
Extremely limited access has preserved intact predator-prey relationships, natural fire cycles, and permafrost formations that remain largely undisturbed by human activity.
Guiana Highlands (Venezuela/Guyana/Brazil)
Rising abruptly from the Amazon Basin, these ancient table mountains (tepuis) create isolated ecological islands in the sky that have evolved in isolation for millions of years. The highlands host plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth, adapted to harsh conditions atop flat summits reaching over 9,000 feet.
Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall, plunges 3,212 feet from Auyán-tepui in
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North Sentinel Island (India)
Perhaps the most isolated human community on Earth inhabits this small island in the Bay of Bengal, fiercely rejecting outside contact for thousands of years. The indigenous Sentinelese people maintain a hunter-gatherer lifestyle completely independent of modern civilization, while the surrounding coral reefs and forests remain virtually untouched by outside influence.
The Indian government strictly prohibits visits to protect the islanders and the intact ecosystem they inhabit, creating a unique wilderness preserved by natural and cultural isolation.
Kerguelen Islands (French Southern Territories)
Known as the ‘Desolation Islands,’ this remote archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean sits more than 2,000 miles from civilization in any direction. Harsh subantarctic conditions, persistent strong winds, and extreme isolation have preserved these islands in a near-pristine state despite being discovered over 250 years ago.
The islands host extraordinary concentrations of seabirds, elephant seals, and unique plant communities adapted to some of the most challenging conditions on Earth.
Torngat Mountains (Canada)
Rising dramatically from Labrador’s coast, these ancient peaks form the tallest mountains of mainland Canada east of the Rockies and represent one of North America’s most isolated wilderness areas. The name ‘Torngat’ comes from the Inuktitut word for ‘place of spirits,’ reflecting the region’s profound cultural significance to indigenous peoples who have lived with the land for thousands of years.
Polar bears roam coastlines dotted with dramatic fjords, while caribou migrate across tundra landscapes that remain virtually untouched by modern development.
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Yamal Peninsula (Russia)
This remote peninsula extends 400 miles into the Arctic Ocean in northwestern Siberia, hosting one of the world’s largest remaining intact permafrost systems. Despite containing significant natural gas reserves, vast areas remain undeveloped, preserving crucial habitat for reindeer herds and the traditional lifestyle of indigenous Nenets reindeer herders.
The peninsula’s countless lakes, formed by thawing and freezing cycles, create a unique wetland wilderness that serves as a crucial habitat for migratory birds from across the globe.
Victoria Falls-Okavango Delta-Chobe Complex (Zambia/Botswana/Zimbabwe)
This remarkable wilderness spans three southern African nations, connecting Victoria Falls to the Okavango Delta through protected areas and wildlife corridors. The region maintains intact seasonal flooding cycles and migration patterns for elephants, buffalo, and numerous other species across a landscape shaped primarily by natural processes.
Traditional management approaches by local communities have preserved this ecosystem while allowing a sustainable human presence that doesn’t compromise its essential wilderness character.
Pantanal Wetlands (Brazil/Bolivia/Paraguay)
The world’s largest tropical wetland ecosystem covers roughly 75,000 square miles across three South American countries, creating a dynamic wilderness that transforms dramatically between wet and dry seasons. This massive floodplain hosts the highest concentration of jaguars on Earth, giant river otters, capybaras, and over 1,000 bird species thriving in its mosaic of grasslands, forests, and waterways.
Despite increasing pressure from agriculture at its edges, the heart of the Pantanal remains largely intact, protected by its sheer size and seasonal flooding that makes permanent development nearly impossible.
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Connection to Our Wild Origins
These remaining wildernesses represent more than beautiful landscapes—they maintain ecological processes that once covered the entire planet, providing irreplaceable reference points for understanding Earth’s natural systems. Their preservation allows future generations to experience genuine wilderness, connecting humans to the environments that shaped our species over millions of years.
As development continues to transform most of the planet, these last wild places serve as living links to our evolutionary past and vital reservoirs of biodiversity for our shared future.
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