World Heritage Site

Logo of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term. A World Heritage Site is a place of either cultural or physical significance.

The program catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The programme was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on November 16, 1972. Since then, 186 state parties have ratified the convention.

As of 2009, 890 sites are listed: 689 cultural, 176 natural, and 25 mixed properties, in 148 states. Italy is home to the greatest number of World Heritage Sites to date with 44 sites inscribed on the list. UNESCO references each World Heritage Site with an identification number; but new inscriptions often include previous sites now listed as part of larger descriptions. As a result, the identification numbers exceed 1200 even though there are fewer on the list.

Each World Heritage Site is the property of the state on whose territory the site is located, but it is considered in the interest of the international community to preserve each site.

History

Site #86: Memphis and its Necropolis, including the Pyramids of Giza (Egypt).

Site #174: Historic center of Florence (Italy).

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Site #202: Sigiriya (Sri Lanka).

Site #292: Cologne Cathedral (Germany).

Site #307: The Statue of Liberty (United States).

Site #483: Chichen Itza in Yucatán (Mexico).

Site #540: Historic Centre of St. Petersburg and its suburbs (Russia).

Site #592: Borobudur in Central Java (Indonesia).

Site #597: Horezu Monastery in Horezu (Romania).

Site #772: The Banaue Rice Terraces in the mountains of Ifugao (Philippines).

Site #835: Medieval Town of Toruń (Poland).

Pre-convention

In 1954, the government of Egypt decided to build the Aswan Dam (Aswan High Dam), an event that would flood a valley containing treasures of ancient Egypt such as the Abu Simbel temples. UNESCO then launched a worldwide safeguarding campaign. The Abu Simbel and Philae temples were taken apart, moved to a higher location, and put back together piece by piece.

The cost of the project was US$80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries. The project was regarded as a success, and led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a draft convention to protect the common cultural heritage of humanity.

Convention and background

See also: World Heritage Committee

The United States initiated the idea of combining cultural conservation with nature conservation. A White House conference in 1965 called for a World Heritage Trust to preserve "the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry." The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, and they were presented in 1972 to the United Nations conference on Human Environment in Stockholm.

A single text was agreed on by all parties, and the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972.

Nominating process

A country must first take an inventory of its significant cultural and natural properties. This is called the Tentative List, and is important because a country may not nominate properties that have not already been included on the Tentative List. Next, it can select a property from this list to place into a Nomination File. The World Heritage Centre offers advice and help in preparing this file.

At this point, the file is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the World Conservation Union. These bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. The Committee meets once per year to determine whether or not to inscribe each nominated property on the World Heritage List, and sometimes defers the decision to request more information from the country who nominated the site. There are ten selection criteria - a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list.

Selection criteria

Until the end of 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so that there is only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of "outstanding universal value" and meet at least one of the ten criteria.

Cultural criteria

• I. "to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius";
• II. "to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design";
• III. "to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared";
• IV. "to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history";
• V. "to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change";
• VI. "to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria.)

Natural criteria

• VII. "to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance";
• VIII. "to be outstanding examples representing major stages of Earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features";
• IX. "to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals";
• X. "to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-site conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation."

Statistics

See also: Table of World Heritage Sites by country

There are 890 World Heritage Sites located in 148 countries (state parties). Of these, 689 are cultural, 176 are natural and 25 are mixed properties. The World Heritage Committee has divided the countries into five geographic zones: Africa, Arab States (composed of North Africa and the Middle East), Asia-Pacific (includes Australia and Oceania), Europe & North America, and Latin America & the Caribbean.

Russia and the Caucasus states are classified as European, while Mexico is classified as belonging to the Latin America & Caribbean zone. The UNESCO geographic zones also give greater emphasis on administrative, rather than geographic associations. Hence, Gough Island, located in the South Atlantic, is part of the Europe & North America region because the government of the United Kingdom nominated the site.

The table below includes a breakdown of the sites according to these zones and their classification:

Zone	Natural	Cultural	Mixed	Total
Africa	33	42	3	78
Arab States	4	60	1	65
Asia-Pacific	48	129	9	186|
Europe & North America	56	375	9	440
Latin America & Caribbean	35	83	3	121
Total	176	689	25	890

Lists of World Heritage Sites

• List of World Heritage Sites in Africa
• List of World Heritage Sites in the Americas
• List of World Heritage Sites in the Arab States
• List of World Heritage Sites in Asia and Australasia
• List of World Heritage Sites in Europe
• List of World Heritage Sites in danger
• Former UNESCO World Heritage Sites
• Table of World Heritage Sites by country
• Wonders of the World

External links

• UNESCO World Heritage portal — Official website Template:En icon and Template:Fr icon
  • The World Heritage List — Official searchable list of all Inscribed Properties
  • KML file of the World Heritage List — Official KML version of the list for Google Earth and NASA Worldwind
  • whc.unesco.org/en/forests — Official overview of the World Heritage Forest Program
  • Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage — Official 1972 Convention Text in 7 languages
    • The 1972 Convention at Law-Ref.org — Fully indexed and crosslinked with other documents
• TIME magazine. The Oscars of the Environment - UNESCO World Heritage Site
• World Heritage Institute of Training and Research - UNESCO category 2 institute devoting to World Heritage in Asia-Pacific region
• www.greatarchaeology.com — Commercial site of World Heritage 'Archaeological Places'
• WHTour.org — World Heritage sites in panographies - 360 degree
• World Heritage Site — Private website of World Heritage
• thesalmons.org's world heritage list — Unofficial list with links and map of sites
• WorldHeritageProject.org — Photography, film, music and other artistic expressions.
• Friends of World Heritage — An non-profit organization that works with UNESCO to identify projects that support local tourism enterprises that can help alleviate poverty and conserve World Heritage sites.
• Organization of World Heritage Cities — UNESCO-affiliated organization dealing with urban sites only
• VRheritage.org — Documentation of World Heritage Sites (inactive since 2002)
• The World Heritage Sites at night
• World Heritage Magazine — Published by a non-profit organization, in Chinese only