UNESCO World Heritage List – Update

If your like Liza and I, and you love visiting the UNESCO World Heritage sites at numerous places throughout the world, you will be pleased to know that the 34th Session of the World Heritage Committee meeting has just concluded in Brasilia, and a total of 21 new sites have been added to the list. This brings the World Heritage List to a total of 911 properties (704 cultural, 180 natural and 27 mixed properties) forming part of the cultural and natural heritage, which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. They have also added four sites to the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger and removed the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) from this List. Three countries, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tajikistan, had sites added for the first time. One existing natural site at Papahānaumokuākea (United States of America), was also recognized for its cultural values and thus becomes a mixed site.

The additional 21 new sites are broken down as follows:

15 new cultural sites:

• Australian Convict Sites (Australia)
• São Francisco Square in the Town of São Cristovão (Brazil)
• Historic Monuments of Dengfeng, in the “Centre of Heaven and Earth” (China)
• Episcopal City of Albi (France)
• Jantar Mantar (India)
• Sheikh Safi al-Din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil (Islamic Republic of Iran)
• Tabriz Historical Bazaar Complex (Islamic Republic of Iran)
• Bikini Atoll, Nuclear Test Site (Marshall Islands)
• Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Mexico)
• Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in the Central Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico)
• Seventeenth-century Canal Ring Area inside the Singelgracht, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
• Historic Villages of Korea: Hahoe and Yangdong (Republic of Korea)
• At Turaif District in ad-Dir’iyah (Saudi Arabia)
• Proto-Urban site of Sarazm (Tajikistan)
• Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi (Viet Nam)

5 new natural sites:

• China Danxia (China)
• Pitons, Cirques and Remparts of Reunion Island (France)
• Phoenix Islands Protected Area (Kiribati)
• Putorana Plateau (Russian Federation)
• Central Highlands of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka)

1 new mixed site:

• Papahānaumokuākea (United States of America)