[imagesource: UNESCO / The Great Spa Towns of Europe]

After some time deliberating (online, and a year later because of the COVID-19 pandemic), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) decided to add 33 new locations to its list of World Heritage Sites, reports CNN.

It is a big deal for a country to have a landmark with UNESCO World Heritage status; the site is deeply admired, protected at all costs, and helps bring in some money.

But it is not so easy to get onto the World Heritage list as there are several criteria for a destination to make the cut.

Ultimately, a site must be of “outstanding universal value” to be included on the list:

Perhaps they’re “a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation which is living or which has disappeared.”

Or maybe they contain “superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance.”

The benefits of getting a UNESCO World Heritage status includes financial assistance for the country, as well as expert advice from UNESCO to help preserve the site.

A property can be nominated, which goes up for review when the UNESCO committee deliberates at a convention, but this could take years.

Here are some of the new World Heritage Sites added to the list from 2020 and 2021:

Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire:

Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex, Peru:

This stunning site — located in northern Peru — is a solar observatory that was once used to track the sun in order to demarcate dates over the course of the year.

Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple, Telangana, India:

The Trans-Iranian Railway, Iran: 

[The] 1,394-kilometre-long track spanning two mountain ranges [and connecting the Caspian Sea with the Persian Gulf], is also now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built in the 1920s and ’30s, the railway navigates some steep routes, as well as an incredible 174 large bridges, 186 smaller bridges and 224 tunnels, including 11 spiral tunnels.

Cordouan lighthouse, France:

The Cordouan beacon is the last to be inhabited in France and only the second, after the Tower of Hercules at La Coruña in Spain, to be added to Unesco’s World Heritage list. Cordouan was built at the end of the 16th century and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean from the mouth of the Gironde estuary in south-western France. (The Guardian)

Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles, Italy: 

This site comprises eight buildings, including Scrovegni Chapel, pictured, home to stunning frescoes.

The other World Heritage sites include:

2020:

• Turkey: Arslantepe Mound
• Belgium/Netherlands: Colonies of Benevolence
• Germany: Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt
• Spain: Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences
• China: Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China
• Romania: Roșia Montană Mining Landscape
• Brazil: Sítio Roberto Burle Marx
• Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
• Ireland: The Great Spa Towns of Europe (image above headline)
• Uruguay: The work of engineer Eladio Dieste: Church of Atlántida
• Saudi Arabia: Ḥimā Cultural Area
• Japan: Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, Northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island
• Georgia: Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands
• South Korea: Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats
• Thailand: Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex

2021:

• Jordan: As-Salt – The Place of Tolerance and Urban Hospitality
• Iran: Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat
• India: Dholavira: a Harappan City
• Germany/the Netherlands: Frontiers of the Roman Empire — The Lower German Limes
• Japan: Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan
• France: Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera
• Chile: Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region
• Germany: ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz
• Italy: The Porticoes of Bologna
• Slovenia: The works of Jože Plečnik in Ljubljana — Human-Centred Urban Design
• United Kingdom: The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales
• Russia: Petroglyphs of Lake Onega and the White Sea
• Gabon: Ivindo National Park

You can check out the full list, with more images and details, here.

As of 2021, there are 10 World Heritage Sites in South Africa, including four cultural sites, four natural sites and one mixed site.

Italy and China, with 55 world heritage sites each, are home to the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world.

[source:cnn]