New UNESCO Sites

Ogasawara Islands, Japan

Each year the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) revises its list of world heritage sites.  The initiative to designate buildings, towns, landscapes, and other materials on an international scale began in 1972 following the ratification of the convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage.   

This year's UNESCO meeting was held in June in Paris, France.  During this meeting 25 additional heritage sites gained UNESCO designation.  A range of sites were added, however the majority of the sites fall under the cultural heritage type of designation.  The 25 additional sites include: 

• Natural properties:
• Ningaloo Coast (Australia)
• Ogasawara Islands (Japan)
• Kenya Lake System in the Great Rift Valley (Kenya)

•  Mixed natural and cultural properties: 
• Wadi Rum Protected Area (Jordan)

• Cultural Properties
• Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison (Barbados)
• West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou (China)
• Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia (Colombia)
• The Persian Garden (Iran)
• Konso Cultural Landscape (Ethiopia)  
• The Causses and the Cévennes, Mediterranean Agro-pastoral Cultural Landscape (France)
• Fagus Factory in Alfeld (Germany)
• Longobards in Italy. Places of the power (568-774 A.D.) (Italy)
• Hiraizumi – Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing The Buddhist Pure Land (Japan)
• Fort Jesus, Mombasa (Kenya)
• Petroglyphs Complexes of the Mongolian Altai (Mongolia)
• León Cathedral (Nicaragua)
• Saloum Delta (Senegal)
• Cultural Landscape of the Serra de Tramuntana (Spain)
• Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe (Sudan)
• Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps (Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia)
• Ancient Villages of Northern Syria (Syrian Arab Republic)
• Selimiye Mosque and its Social Complex (Turkey)
• Cultural Sites of Al Ain (Hafit, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases Areas)               
• The Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans (Ukraine)
• Citadel of the Ho Dynasty (Viet Nam)

 Additionally, the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve (Honduras) and the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (Indonesia) were added to the World Heritage in Danger list.