Vjetrenica Cave, Ravno

Located in the Dinaric mountain range, the property stands out with its remarkable cave biodiversity and endemicity. Known since antiquity, the well-conserved representation of karst topography is one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots for cave-dwelling fauna, notably subterranean aquatic fauna. It is home to a number of globally threatened vertebrate species, and the only subterranean tubeworm in the world, as well as a diversity of plant species endemic to the Balkans. Additionally, sever... Read More

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park

The property is located in northeastern Brazil, on the east coast of Maranhão, in a transition zone between three Brazilian biomes: Cerrado, Caatinga and Amazon. More than half of its area consists of a white coastal dune field with temporary and permanent lagoons. Beyond its important role in biodiversity conservation, the park boasts globally significant aesthetic and geological/geomorphological values. Along an 80 km coastline, with beaches followed by plains, the prevailing winds shape the dunes into lo... Read More

Royal Court of Tiébélé

The property is an earthen architectural complex established since the 16th century that bears testimony to the social organization and cultural values of the Kasena people. Enclosed by a protective compound wall, the Royal Court consists of a set of buildings arranged in distinct concessions separated by walls and passageways leading to ceremonial and gathering places outside the compound. Built by the men of the Royal Court, the huts are then adorned with decorations of symbolic significance by the women,... Read More

Beijing Central Axis

Running north to south through the heart of historical Beijing, the Central Axis consists of former imperial palaces and gardens, sacrificial structures, and ceremonial and public buildings. Together they bears testimony to the evolution of the city and exhibits evidence of the imperial dynastic system and urban planning traditions of China. The location, layout, urban pattern, roads and design showcase the ideal capital city as prescribed in the Kaogongji, an ancient text known as the Book of Diverse Craft... Read More

Badain Jaran Desert

Located in the Alashan Plateau in the hyper-arid and temperate desert region of northwestern China, the Badain Jaran Desert is a meeting point for three sandy regions of China and is the country’s third largest desert and second largest drifting desert. The property stands out with its high density of mega-dunes, intersected with inter-dunal lakes. It displays spectacular ongoing geological and geomorphic features of desert landscapes and landforms which may well be unparalleled. Noteworthy features, among ... Read More

Melka Kunture and Balchit

Located in the Upper Awash Valley in Ethiopia, the serial property is a cluster of prehistoric sites that preserve archaeological and palaeontological records – including footprints – that testify to the area’s occupation by the hominin groups from two million years ago. The sites, situated about 2,000 to 2,200 metres above sea level, yielded Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and archaic Homo sapiens fossils, documented in well-dated strata in association with various tools made from volcanic rocks. T... Read More

Marquesas Islands

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, this mixed serial property bears an exceptional testimony to the territorial occupation of the Marquesas archipelago by a human civilisation that arrived by sea around the year 1000 CE and developed on these isolated islands between the 10th and the 19th centuries. It is also a hotspot of biodiversity that combines irreplaceable and exceptionally well conserved marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Marked by sharp ridges, impressive peaks and cliffs rising abruptly above the... Read More

Schwerin Residence

Created for the most part in the 19th century in what was then the capital of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in northeast Germany, the property comprises 38 elements, including the Grand Duke’s Residence Palace and manor houses, cultural and sacred buildings, and the Pfaffenteich ornamental lake. But it also fulfils all the functions required of a ducal capital in terms of administration, defence, service infrastructure, transportation, prestige and cultural activities, with parks, canals, ponds an... Read More

Moidams

Set in the foothills of the Patkai Ranges in eastern Assam, the property contains the royal necropolis of the Tai-Ahom. For 600 years, the Tai-Ahom created moidams (burial mounds) accentuating the natural topography of hills, forests and water, thus forming a sacred geography. Banyan trees and the trees used for coffins and bark manuscripts were planted and water bodies created. Ninety moidams – hollow vaults built of brick, stone or earth – of different sizes are found within the site. They contain the rem... Read More

Hegmataneh

The archaeological remains of ancient Hegmataneh are located in northwestern Iran. Continuously inhabited for nearly three millennia, Hegmataneh provides important and rare evidence of the Medes civilization in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE and later served as a summer capital of Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian rulers.

Via Appia

More than 800 kilometres long, the Via Appia is the oldest and most important of the great roads built by the Ancient Romans. Constructed and developed from 312 BCE to the 4th century CE, it was originally conceived as a strategic road for military conquest, advancing towards the East and Asia Minor. The Via Appia later enabled the cities it connected to grow and new settlements emerged, facilitating agricultural production and trade. This property, composed of 22 component parts, is a fully developed ensem... Read More

Sado Island Gold Mines

The Sado Island Gold Mines are a serial property located on Sado Island, some thirty-five kilometres west of the Niigata Prefecture coast. It is formed of several component parts illustrative of different unmechanised mining methods. Sado Island is of volcanic origin and features two parallel mountain ranges stretching from southwest to northeast and separated by one alluvial plain, the Kuninaka Plain. Gold and silver deposits were formed by the rising of hydrothermal water to the land surface and forming v... Read More

Umm Al Jimāl

The property is a rural settlement in northern Jordan that developed organically on the site of an earlier Roman settlement around the 5th century CE and functioned until the end of the 8th century CE. It preserves basaltic structures from the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods that represent the local architecture style of the Hauran region, with some earlier Roman military buildings re-purposed by later inhabitants. The settlement formed part of a broader agricultural landscape that included a complex wa... Read More

Gedi

Surrounded by a remnant coastal forest, away from the coastline, the abandoned city of Gedi was one of the most important Swahili cities on the East African coast from the 10th to 17th centuries. During this period, it was part of a complex and international network of trade and cultural exchanges that crossed the Indian Ocean, linking African coastal centres with Persia and other areas. The opulent settlement is clearly delineated by walls and features remains of domestic, religious, and civic architecture... Read More

Niah National Park

This complex of colossal, interconnected caverns is located near the west coast of Borneo Island at the centre of Niah National Park. It contains the longest known records of human interaction with rainforest, spanning at least 50,000 years, from the Pleistocene to the Mid-Holocene periods. The rich archaeological deposits, prehistoric rock paintings and boat-shaped burials found at the northern edge of the massif illustrate biological and human life during this time, and contribute greatly to the knowledg... Read More

Frontiers of the Roman Empire Dacia

From 500 BCE on, the Roman Empire extended its territory across parts of Europe and North Africa until its frontier totaled some 7,500 kilometres by the 2nd century. The Romanian segment, the Dacian Limes, was operational from 106 to 271 CE. The property comprises 277 component parts and represents the longest, most complex land border of a former Roman province in Europe. Traversing diverse landscapes, it is defined by a network of individual sites that include legionary fortresses, auxiliary forts, earthe... Read More

Kenozero Lake

Located in Kenozero National Park in the north-western area of the European region of the Russian Federation, the property depicts the local cultural landscape that evolved here from the 12th century, following the gradual Slavic colonization. It incorporates a number of traditional rural settlements with vernacular wooden architecture and reflects the communal management of agriculture and nature that developed when the indigenous Finno-Ugric forest culture merged with the traditional Slavic field culture.... Read More

Al Faw Archaeological Area

Lying at a strategic point of the ancient trade routes of the Arabian Peninsula, the property was abruptly abandoned around the 5th century CE. Nearly 12,000 archaeological remains have been found, spanning from prehistoric times to the Late pre-Islamic era, testifying to the successive occupation of three different populations and their adaptation to the evolving environmental conditions. Archaeological features include the Palaeolithic and Neolithic tools of early people, tapered structures, cairns and ci... Read More

Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites

The serial property represents the legacy of the South African struggle for human rights, liberation and reconciliation. It consists of fourteen component parts located around the country, all related to South Africa’s political history in the 20th century. The parts include the Union Buildings (Pretoria), now the official seat of government; the Sharpeville Sites, commemorating the massacre of 69 people protesting the unjust Pass Laws; and The Great Place at Mqhekezweni, a site symbolic of traditional lead... Read More

Pleistocene Occupation Sites

This serial property contributes to the understanding of the origin of behaviourally modern humans, their cognitive abilities and cultures, and the climatic transitions that they survived. It is composed of three dispersed archaeological sites, Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Pinnacle Point Site Complex, and Sibhudu Cave, located in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces of South Africa. These sites provide the most varied and best-preserved record known of the development of modern human behaviour, reaching ... Read More

Saint Hilarion Monastery

Situated on the coastal dunes in Nuseirat Municipality, the ruins of Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer represent one of the earliest monastic sites in the Middle East, dating back to the 4th century. Founded by Saint Hilarion, the monastery began with solitary hermits and evolved into a coenobitic community. It was the first monastic community in the Holy Land, laying the groundwork for the spread of monastic practices in the region. The monastery occupied a strategic position at the crossroads of maj... Read More

Phu Phrabat

The property illustrates the Sīma stone tradition of the Dvaravati period (7th-11th centuries CE). While sacred boundary markers for areas of Theravada Buddhist monastic practice vary in materials, extensive use of stones is found only in the Khorat Plateau region in Southeast Asia. Buddhism’s arrival in the 7th century led to an increase in the erection of Sīma stones throughout the region for over four centuries. The Phu Phrabat Mountain area preserves the largest corpus in the world of in situ Sīma ... Read More

The Flow Country

The serial property, located in the Highland Region of Scotland, is considered the most outstanding example of an actively accumulating blanket bog landscape. This peatland ecosystem, which has been accumulating for the past 9,000 years, provides a diversity of habitats home to a distinct combination of bird species and displays a remarkable diversity of features not found anywhere else on Earth. Peatlands play an important role in storing carbon and the property’s ongoing peat-forming ecological processes ... Read More

Targu Jiu

Austere, contemplative, yet accessible, the monumental ensemble of Târgu Jiu was created in 1937-1938 by Constantin Brâncuși, an influential pioneer of abstract sculpture, to commemorate those who died defending the city during the First World War. Located in two parks connected by the narrow Avenue of Heroes, the property includes the monumental ensemble of sculptural installations and the pre-existing Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, located on the axis. The remarkable fusion of abstract sculpt... Read More

Funerary and memory sites of the First World War

This transnational serial property encompasses sites along the First World War Western Front, where war was fought between the German and the Allied forces between 1914 and 1918. Located between the north of Belgium and the east of France, the component parts of the property vary in scale from large necropolises, holding the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers of several nationalities, to tiny and simpler cemeteries, and single memorials. The sites include different military cemeteries, battlefield bur... Read More