UNESCO Adds 42 New World Heritage Sites — Including One in the U.S.

See the full list.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee added 42 sites to its World Heritage List this month, recognizing cultural and natural sites across the globe from Europe and Africa to the United States.

The list, which was updated as part of the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, now includes 33 new cultural sites and nine new natural sites, according to the group. In total, there are now 1,199 World Heritage sites across 168 different countries.

“These sites will now benefit from the highest level of heritage protection in the world,” UNESCO wrote in a statement. “They will also have access to new opportunities for technical and financial assistance from UNESCO.”

In the U.S., the group added the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to the list, which is part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ohio. The site consists of “eight monumental earthen enclosure complexes built between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago along the central tributaries of the Ohio River.”

The new designation makes the Ohio site the 25th World Heritage Site in the U.S., according to the National Park Service.

Beyond the U.S., the new additions to the list feature several sites in Africa, including the first two in Rwanda: Nyungwe National Park and the genocide memorial sites at Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi, and Bisesero. In total, Africa now boasts 100 sites in total on the World Heritage List.

UNESCO also added sites in Europe like the Jewish-Medieval Heritage of Erfurt in Germany and the funerary and memory sites of the First World War in Belgium and France, as well as sites in Asia, South America, and more.

In addition to adding new sites to the list, UNESCO also decided not to add the city of Venice to its list of world heritage sites in danger despite recommendations to due to the effects of climate change and over-tourism.

This is a full list of the sites newly inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List this year.

Cultural properties:

• Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan (State of Palestine)

• Astronomical Observatories of Kazan Federal University (Russian Federation)

• Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and “Köç Yolu” Transhumance Route (Azerbaijan)

• Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er (China)

• Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Age Sites (Mongolia)

• Djerba: Testimony to a settlement pattern in an island territory (Tunisia)

• ESMA Museum and Site of Memory – Former Clandestine Center of Detention, Torture and Extermination (Argentina)

• Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker (Netherlands)

• Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front) (Belgium, France)

• Gaya Tumuli (Republic of Korea)

• Gordion (Türkiye)

• Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks (United States of America)

• Jewish-Medieval Heritage of Erfurt (Germany)

• Jodensavanne Archaeological Site: Jodensavanne Settlement and Cassipora Creek Cemetery (Suriname)

• Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Lingapura or Chok Gargyar (Cambodia)

• Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero (Rwanda)

• Modernist Kaunas: Architecture of Optimism, 1919-1939 (Lithuania)

• National Archaeological Park Tak’alik Ab’aj (Guatemala)

• Old town of Kuldīga (Latvia)

• Prehistoric Sites of Talayotic Menorca (Spain)

• Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas (India)

• Santiniketan (India)

• Silk Roads: Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)

• The Ancient Town of Si Thep and its Associated Dvaravati Monuments (Thailand)

• The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and its Historic Landmarks (Indonesia)

• The Gedeo Cultural Landscape (Ethiopia)

• The Maison Carrée of Nîmes (France)

• The Persian Caravanserai (Iran (Islamic Republic of))

• Tr’ondëk-Klondike (Canada)

• Viking-Age Ring Fortresses (Denmark)

• Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia (Türkiye)

• Zagori Cultural Landscape (Greece)

• Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops (Czechia)

Natural properties:

• Anticosti (Canada)

• Bale Mountains National Park (Ethiopia)

• Cold Winter Deserts of Turan (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)

• Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Apennines (Italy)

• Forest Massif of Odzala-Kokoua (Congo)

• Nyungwe National Park (Rwanda)

• Tugay forests of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve (Tajikistan)

• Volcanoes and Forests of Mount Pelée and the Pitons of Northern Martinique (France)

• ‘Uruq Bani Ma’arid (Saudi Arabia)
  

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