Nui Chua National Park is located in Ninh Thuan Province, with a total natural area of 29,865 hectares, including mainland area and marine area.
Nui Chua National Park is one of six national Parks with both mainland area and marine area. Therefore, Nui Chua National Park has not only the value of forest resources conservation but also the value of marine resource conservation.
Its forest resources are very rich and diversified with large, typical and unique dry forest area in Vietnam; and area of broad-leaved and cone-bearing evergreen forest which is typical for Asian pristine humid tropical climate. Its marine ecosystem includes coral reefs near shore, turtle nesting beaches, sea-grass beds, mangroves and coastal sand banks. Coral reef ecosystems near shore are habitat and shelter for many species of marine creature. In addition, the marine ecosystems of intertidal habitat created unique landscape and organism for Nui Chua National Park. Also, in 2003, WWF identified three valuable and rare species of sea turtles including Chelonia mydas, Eretmochelys imbricata and Carette carette which were in danger of extinction and presented for food and spawning in sea of Nui Chua National Park. On the other hand, the waters of Ninh Thuan - Binh Thuan is the crossroads of two sea currents including the cold sea current running from the north and the hot sea current from the south; thus, the sea here was very rich in nutrients, habitat and migration of many aquatic species.
Nui Chua National Park - Marine Protected Area particularly has coral with rich distribution and morphology. According to the results of research on coral reef ecosystems of Vietnam Sea in 2011, coral reefs in Nui Chua were considered rich in distribution and most diverse in morphology and structure than other coastal waters of Ninh Thuan. Total estimated area of existing coral reefs is up to 2,330 hectares (recorded as a place has the largest coral reef in Vietnam). In the context of climate change today, coral reefs in general will be threatened and in danger of being destroyed. However, the waters of Nui Chua National Park were located in upwelling effect area, so adaptation to climate change is very large. It can be seen as a place to keep the populations of coral when the climate change impacts on other areas in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
Hard coral coverage ranged from 11.3 to 55.9%, average 30.7 ± 17.2%, of which the dominant corals consist of Acropora, Montipora, Porites, Hydnophora, Favites, Merulina and Simularia.
Coral reef structure consists of fringing reef and non-fringing reef in which fringing reef is main. Fringing reef is distributed in coastal area of Thai An, My Hoa, My Tan and My Tuong. At low tide, these reefs expose a very large tidal beach, which can be extended to 500 - 800m. Reef morphology is relatively complex and diverse with groups of coral distributing from low tide level to a depth of over 20m. Reef plan is gently sloping and over 1 km long. Particularly, the trace of reef development in geological history was stored in many coastal regions and the most in Hang Rai area.