UNESCO World Heritage List

place of significance listed by UNESCO

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a geographic site that has been selected for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's International World Heritage Programme. The programme aims to catalogue and preserve sites of outstanding importance, either cultural or natural, to the common heritage of humankind. While the World Heritage Committee maintains a list of World Heritage Sites, they make no independent review; in practice, they are listed by each national government. After the 2024 session of the World Heritage Committee, there is a total of 1,223 sites, many of which are made up of several individual components. With around 400 sites on the second smallest continent, Europe has by far the highest density of world heritage sites. Only a little over 200 sites are in the Americas and Oceania combined.

There are several related UNESCO programmes:

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, for things that cannot be touched such as musical or culinary traditions.
UNESCO Creative Cities, a programme which recognizes entire cities for their cultural contributions.
UNESCO Global Geoparks Network, for parks of great geological interest.
UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves
UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW), programme to preserve the documentary heritage of humanity.

There are also conservation programmes run by other organizations, such as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat.

If you would like to help expanding Wikivoyage's coverage of world heritage sites, like starting new guides etc., please check the Wikivoyage:World Heritage Expedition

Africa

Asia

Delisted sites

Waldschlösschen Bridge

The process of delisting a site is a lengthy political endeavor. Mere continued existence of a UNESCO listing should not be taken as evidence the underlying site (or its landmark heritage) still exists. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee updates a list of endangered sites annually (see List of World Heritage in Danger on Wikipedia) as a political tool to pressure individual countries to take specific conservation measures or to refrain from certain actions that are seen as endangering the world heritage site. Sites such as Hatra in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria remain listed as UNESCO World Heritage (and as World Heritage in Danger) in 2017, even though warring belligerents have largely obliterated anything of historic value. Conversely, Taiwan is denied UN recognition on entirely political grounds and has no UNESCO world heritage listings, despite the existence of eleven sites which would otherwise be suitable candidates.

In some cases, a UNESCO listing has irrevocably harmed a site. The term UNESCO-cide, coined by Italian writer Marco d'Eramo, describes a pattern where listing a tiny fishing village or historic community to protect the buildings from developers creates an unsustainable influx of travellers. As gentrification and hyper-commercialisation price the original people and their subsistence fishery out of the community, existing structures are repurposed as travel lodging or tacky souvenir shops. UNESCO pays lip service to sustainable travel, but tends to underestimate its own impact on tiny, vulnerable communities. Conversely, some listings of UNESCO sites as "in danger" are arguably political responses to actions or non-actions of local authorities which are hardly capable of destroying or seriously endangering the site. The United States and Israel left UNESCO in protest after their recognition of Palestine, and are thus not eligible to propose new sites for the list; however, the United States rejoined in 2023.

A majority vote of the World Heritage Committee at a UNESCO meeting may be used to revoke a landmark's status as a World Heritage Site. This has happened three times:

The following are sites that were once registered World Heritage Sites but have since been taken off the list:

More information Official name, Location ...

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Official name	Location	Criteria	Year
Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad	Saharan Atlas	Cultural	1980
Djémila	Sétif	Cultural	1982
Kasbah of Algiers	Algiers	Cultural	1992
M'zab Valley	M'zab	Cultural	1982
Tassili n'Ajjer	Saharan Algeria	Mixed	1982
Timgad	Batna	Cultural	1982
Tipasa	Tipaza	Cultural	1982

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Royal Palaces of Abomey	Abomey		Cultural	1985
W-Arly-Pendjari Complex		Natural	1996	Extending the original 1996 property in 2017 to Burkina Faso an Benin

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Tsodilo	Okavango Delta	Cultural	2001
Okavango Delta	Okavango Delta	Natural	2014

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
The Ruins of Loropéni	Gaoua		Cultural	2009
Ancient ferrous metallurgy sites of Burkina Faso	Black Volta Region, North Burkina Faso	Cultural	2019	5 components
W-Arly-Pendjari Complex		Natural	1996	Extending the original 1996 property in 2017 to Burkina Faso and Benin
Royal Court of Tiébélé	Volta Delta	Cultural	2024

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Dja Faunal Reserve	South Cameroon Plateau		Natural	1987
Sangha Trinational	South Cameroon Plateau	Natural	2012	Shared with Central African Republic and Rep. Congo

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Comoe National Park	Northern Savanna	Natural	1983	Listed as in danger since 2003
Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve	Southwestern Forests	Natural	1981	Listed as in danger since 1992; shared with Guinea
Taï National Park	Southwestern Forests	Natural	1982
Historic town of Grand-Bassam	Grand-Bassam	Cultural	2012
Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire	Northern Savanna	Cultural	2021	8 components

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Virunga National Park	Kivu	Natural	1979	Listed as in danger since 1994
Kahuzi-Biega National Park	Kivu	Natural	1980	Listed as in danger since 1997
Garamba National Park	Congo Basin	Natural	1980	Listed as in danger in 1980, removed 1991. Relisted as in danger in 1996
Salonga National Park	Congo Basin	Natural	1984	Listed as in danger since 1999
Okapi Wildlife Reserve	Congo Basin	Natural	1996	Listed as in danger since 1997

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Abu Mena	Alexandria	Cultural	1979	Listed as in danger since 2001
Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis	Luxor	Cultural	1979
Historic Cairo	Cairo	Cultural	1979
Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur	Memphis, Cairo/Giza, Dahshur	Cultural	1979
Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae	Abu Simbel, Philae	Cultural	1979
Saint Catherine Area	Saint Catherine	Cultural	2002
Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley)	Whale Valley	Natural	2005

Official name	Location	Criteria	Year	Notes
Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela	Lalibela	Cultural	1979
Simien National Park	Amhara	Natural	1978	Listed as in danger since 1996
Fasil Ghebbi	Gondar	Cultural	1979
Aksum	Axum	Cultural	1980
Lower Valley of the Awash	Awash National Park	Cultural	1980
Lower Valley of the Omo	Southern Ethiopia	Cultural	1980
Tiya	Tiya	Cultural	1980
Harar Jugol Fortified Historic Town	Harar	Cultural	2006
Konso Cultural Landscape	Konso	Cultural	2011
Bale Mountains National Park	Southern Ethiopia	Natural	2023
Gedeo Cultural Landscape	Southern Ethiopia	Cultural	2023
Melka Kunture and Balchit: Archaeological and Palaeontological Sites in the Highland Area of Ethiopia	Central Ethiopia	Cultural	2024