World Heritage Sites

Inscribed 1978 · Africa

Eleven medieval churches carved directly out of solid rock, still active places of pilgrimage and worship.

Inscribed 1978 · Europe

A medieval salt mine with underground chapels, sculptures and chandeliers all carved from rock salt.

Inscribed 1979 · Africa

The Memphis necropolis — the Great Pyramid, Khafre, Menkaure and the Great Sphinx — on the edge of Cairo.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

A medieval abbey crowning a rocky tidal island off the Normandy coast, ringed by fast-moving tides.

Inscribed 1979 · Africa

Two rock temples of Ramesses II in Nubia, guarded by four seated colossi over 20 m tall.

Inscribed 1979 · Asia

The ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, its great terrace lined with carved reliefs.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

The lavish royal palace of the French kings, renowned for its Hall of Mirrors and formal gardens.

Inscribed 1979 · Africa

The medieval heart of Cairo, rich with mosques, madrasas, hammams and fountains spanning a thousand years of Islamic architecture.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

The largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, preserved as a memorial to over one million victims.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

A walled medieval port on the Adriatic, its limestone streets and red rooftops a jewel of the Dalmatian coast.

Inscribed 1979 · Asia

A vast royal square in Isfahan surrounded by masterpieces of Islamic architecture — mosques, a palace and a grand bazaar.

Inscribed 1980 · Europe

The heart of ancient Rome — the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Pantheon among centuries of monuments.

Inscribed 1980 · Asia

Ruins of one of the earliest major cities, a centre of the Indus Valley Civilisation dating to around 2500 BC.

Inscribed 1981 · Africa

One of the world's largest car-free urban areas, a labyrinth of medieval lanes, souks and artisan workshops.

Inscribed 1982 · North America

A colourful colonial port city founded by Spain in the 1500s, blending Baroque and neoclassical architecture.

Inscribed 1982 · Europe

The birthplace of the Renaissance, home to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Uffizi and Ponte Vecchio.

Inscribed 1982 · Asia

A 5th-century rock fortress and palace built atop a 200-metre column of magma hardened in the throat of a volcano.

Inscribed 1983 · Asia

A white-marble mausoleum in Agra, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Inscribed 1983 · South America

The former Inca capital in the Andes, where Spanish colonial churches rise on top of Inca stone foundations.

Inscribed 1984 · Europe

A palace and fortress complex of Moorish Spain, famed for its courtyards, fountains and intricate stucco.

Inscribed 1984 · North America

A colossal copper statue in New York Harbor, a gift from France and a symbol of freedom worldwide.

Inscribed 1984 · Europe

The world's smallest independent state, seat of the Pope and home to St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.

Inscribed 1985 · Asia

An ancient Nabataean city carved into rose-red sandstone cliffs, reached through a narrow canyon, the Siq.

Inscribed 1985 · Asia

A city on two continents, with layers of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman heritage — Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and Topkapı Palace.

Inscribed 1986 · Europe

A prehistoric ring of massive standing stones on Salisbury Plain, raised more than 4,000 years ago.

Inscribed 1986 · Asia

The ruins of Vijayanagara, a once-magnificent South Indian capital set among surreal granite boulders.

Inscribed 1986 · Africa

Ruins of a medieval Shona city built from stacked granite blocks, once the heart of a great trading empire.

Inscribed 1986 · Asia

One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, its massive citadel rising above covered souks.

Inscribed 1987 · Asia

A vast system of fortifications winding across northern China, built and rebuilt over some two thousand years.

Inscribed 1987 · Europe

The citadel above Athens crowned by the Parthenon, the supreme monument of Classical Greek architecture.

Inscribed 1987 · Asia

The imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties in Beijing, the largest palace complex on Earth.

Inscribed 1987 · Europe

A city of 118 islands linked by canals and bridges, its palaces built on millions of wooden piles.

Inscribed 1987 · South America

A modernist capital city built from scratch in the late 1950s, designed by Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer.

Inscribed 1988 · North America

A great Maya-Toltec city in the Yucatán, dominated by the stepped pyramid of El Castillo.

Inscribed 1988 · Africa

A legendary desert city of mud-brick mosques and a great centre of Islamic learning in West Africa.

Inscribed 1988 · Europe

A medieval royal fortress on the Thames that served as palace, prison, armoury and home of the Crown Jewels.

Inscribed 1990 · Europe

Moscow's historic heart, from the fortified Kremlin to the swirling domes of St Basil's Cathedral.

Inscribed 1991 · Asia

The world's largest Buddhist temple, a vast stone mandala in central Java built in the 9th century.

Inscribed 1991 · Asia

The capital of the first Thai kingdom, its ruins preserving fine Buddhist temples and seated Buddhas.

Inscribed 1991 · Asia

The largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia, a cluster of towering stone spires on the plains of Java.

Inscribed 1992 · Asia

The sprawling temple capital of the Khmer Empire, including the vast Angkor Wat and the faces of Bayon.

Inscribed 1992 · Europe

A Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance jewel straddling the Vltava River, crowned by Prague Castle.

Inscribed 1993 · Asia

An elegant white castle complex in western Japan, the finest surviving example of Japanese feudal architecture.

Inscribed 1994 · Asia

Seventeen temples, shrines and a castle spanning a thousand years of Japanese culture, from Kinkaku-ji to Fushimi Inari.

Inscribed 1994 · Asia

The towering palace-fortress in Lhasa that was the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas for centuries.

Inscribed 1995 · Oceania

A remote Pacific island famous for its moai — monumental stone heads carved by Polynesian settlers.

Inscribed 1995 · Asia

A peaceful town at the meeting of two rivers, where gilded Buddhist temples sit beside French colonial houses.

Inscribed 1995 · Europe

Scotland's capital, contrasting the medieval Old Town around Edinburgh Castle with the Georgian elegance of the New Town.

Inscribed 1997 · Europe

A Roman city near Naples buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and preserved for centuries.

Inscribed 1999 · Africa

The island prison off Cape Town where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration.

Inscribed 2000 · Asia

A "museum without walls" — capital of the Silla kingdom for a millennium, dotted with royal tombs and Buddhist relics.

Inscribed 2001 · Asia

A Silk Road crossroads famed for Registan Square and its dazzling blue-tiled madrasas and minarets.

Inscribed 2007 · Oceania

A 20th-century architectural masterpiece on Sydney Harbour, its shell roofs a global icon of modern design.

Inscribed 2019 · Asia

A plain scattered with thousands of Buddhist temples and stupas, the heart of the medieval Pagan kingdom.

Inscribed 1978 · South America

A volcanic archipelago in the Pacific whose unique wildlife inspired Darwin's theory of evolution.

Inscribed 1978 · North America

The world's first national park, sitting atop a supervolcano of geysers, hot springs and wildlife.

Inscribed 1979 · North America

A mile-deep gorge carved by the Colorado River through Arizona, exposing two billion years of rock.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

A chain of terraced turquoise lakes linked by waterfalls, woven through forested Croatian hills.

Inscribed 1979 · Asia

The Nepalese Himalaya around Mount Everest, a landscape of glaciers, deep valleys and Sherpa culture.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

One of Europe's last primeval forests, a vast lowland woodland that survived because kings kept it as a hunting reserve.

Inscribed 1981 · Oceania

The world's largest coral reef system off Queensland, teeming with marine life across thousands of reefs.

Inscribed 1981 · Africa

Vast East African plains hosting the greatest land-mammal migration on Earth.

Inscribed 1981 · South America

A vast field of glaciers in Patagonia, including the mighty Perito Moreno Glacier.

Inscribed 1984 · South America

A horseshoe of hundreds of waterfalls on the border of Argentina and Brazil, set in lush rainforest.

Inscribed 1984 · North America

A string of parks including Banff and Jasper — peaks, glaciers, canyons and glacial-blue lakes.

Inscribed 1986 · Europe

Around 40,000 interlocking basalt columns on the Northern Irish coast, formed by ancient lava flows.

Inscribed 1987 · Africa

Africa's highest peak, a free-standing volcanic massif rising from savanna to a glacier-capped summit.

Inscribed 1989 · Africa

A thundering curtain of the Zambezi River, known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders".

Inscribed 1989 · Africa

A coastal desert park where Saharan sand dunes meet the Atlantic, attracting millions of migratory birds.

Inscribed 1990 · Oceania

A vast stretch of south-western New Zealand — fiords, glaciers, rainforest and mountains in pristine wilderness.

Inscribed 1991 · Asia

A cluster of rugged Indonesian islands, the only home of the Komodo dragon.

Inscribed 1992 · Asia

A Tibetan valley of multicoloured lakes, waterfalls and snow peaks on the edge of the Himalaya.

Inscribed 1992 · Asia

A forest of more than 3,000 narrow sandstone pillars and peaks in Hunan province.

Inscribed 1994 · Asia

Thousands of limestone karst islands and islets rising from emerald waters in northern Vietnam.

Inscribed 1994 · South America

A park of ancient tabletop mountains (tepuis) and Angel Falls, the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall.

Inscribed 1996 · North America

The largest reef in the northern hemisphere, including the famous deep-blue Great Blue Hole.

Inscribed 1996 · Asia

The deepest and oldest lake on Earth, holding about one-fifth of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water.

Inscribed 1997 · Asia

The world's largest mangrove forest, a labyrinth of tidal waterways, mudflats and salt-tolerant trees.

Inscribed 1997 · Africa

Africa's second-highest mountain, an extinct volcano whose glaciated peaks rise above equatorial forest.

Inscribed 2000 · South America

The world's largest tropical wetland, flooding seasonally across an area the size of England.

Inscribed 2001 · Europe

The most glaciated part of the Alps, centred on the Aletsch Glacier — the longest ice stream in Europe.

Inscribed 2003 · Asia

A vast limestone karst landscape hiding the world's largest cave passage and immense underground rivers.

Inscribed 2004 · Asia

A remote Arctic island in the Chukchi Sea, the last refuge of the woolly mammoth and a major polar-bear denning ground.

Inscribed 2006 · Asia

Mountain forests in central China sheltering over 30% of the world's remaining wild giant pandas.

Inscribed 2008 · Asia

An isolated island in the Indian Ocean, nicknamed "the Galápagos of the East" for its alien-looking endemic flora.

Inscribed 2009 · Europe

Dramatic pale limestone peaks in the Italian Alps, renowned for their vertical walls and pastel sunsets.

Inscribed 1979 · Africa

A vast volcanic caldera on the edge of the Serengeti, teeming with wildlife and home to Maasai pastoralists.

Inscribed 1979 · North America

A major Maya city swallowed by jungle, its towering temple-pyramids rising above the rainforest canopy.

Inscribed 1979 · Europe

One of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes, ringed by medieval churches and ancient settlements.

Inscribed 1982 · Oceania

A vast temperate wilderness of ancient rainforest, wild rivers and Aboriginal rock art spanning 20,000 years.

Inscribed 1983 · South America

A 15th-century Inca citadel perched on an Andean ridge above the Urubamba River.

Inscribed 1985 · Asia

A surreal landscape of "fairy chimney" rock spires honeycombed with cave churches and underground cities.

Inscribed 1987 · Oceania

A giant red sandstone monolith sacred to the Anangu people, rising from the Australian desert.

Inscribed 1987 · Asia

A sacred mountain of China, revered for millennia and climbed by emperors and pilgrims alike.

Inscribed 1988 · Europe

Monasteries perched atop sheer natural rock pillars rising hundreds of metres above central Greece.

Inscribed 1988 · Europe

A self-governing monastic community of 20 ancient monasteries on a rugged Aegean peninsula.

Inscribed 1990 · Oceania

A volcanic plateau of active peaks and emerald crater lakes, sacred to the Māori.

Inscribed 1990 · Asia

A mountain of twisted pines, misty granite peaks and hot springs that inspired centuries of Chinese landscape painting.

Inscribed 2010 · Oceania

A vast marine monument stretching across the north-western Hawaiian Islands, sacred to Native Hawaiians.

Inscribed 2011 · Asia

A dramatic desert landscape of sandstone mountains, natural arches and 12,000 years of rock art.