Galathea National Park is a National Park

National park

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...

 located in the Union Territory

Union Territory

A Union Territory is a sub-national administrative division of India, in the federal framework of governance. Unlike the states of India, which have their own elected governments, union territories are ruled directly by the federal government; the President of India appoints an Administrator or...

 of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is located on the island of Great Nicobar

Great Nicobar

Great Nicobar is the largest of the Nicobar Islands of India, north of Sumatra. Indira Point, its southernmost tip, is also the southernmost point of India. The island of Sumatra is located to the south of Great Nicobar...

 in the Nicobar Islands

Nicobar Islands

The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean...

, which lie in the eastern Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

 (Bay of Bengal

Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...

).

The total area of this park is some 110 square kilometres, and it was gazetted as a National Park of India

National parks of India

This is a list of all national parks of India. India's first national park was established in 1936 as Hailey National Park, now known as Jim Corbett National Park. By 1970, India only had five national parks...

 in 1992. Galathea forms part of what has been designated as the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve

Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve

The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve encompasses a large part of the island of Great Nicobar, the largest of the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Nicobars lie in the Bay of Bengal, eastern Indian Ocean, 190 km to the north of the Indonesian island of...

, which also includes the larger Campbell Bay National Park

Campbell Bay National Park

Campbell Bay National Park is a national park in India, located on the island of Great Nicobar, the largest of the Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean some 190 km to the north of Sumatra...

, separated from Galathea by a 12-km forest buffer zone.

Many unique and rare species of plants and animals are found in the park, a number of which (owing to their relative geographical isolation) are endemic

Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 to the islands.

Fauna

Notable animal species found in the park include the giant robber crab, megapode and Nicobar pigeon

Nicobar Pigeon

The Nicobar Pigeon, Caloenas nicobarica, is a pigeon found on small islands and in coastal regions from the Nicobar Islands, east through the Malay Archipelago, to the Solomons and Palau. It is the only living member of the genus Caloenas....

.