Blog | Page 9 of 13 | World Heritage Sites

People walk a path through low shrubs toward a green mountain in the background.

Gros Morne National Park

An area of natural beauty which illustrates the process of continental drift.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Two active volcanoes and a protected habitat for endemic flora and fauna.

Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain

A small mountain with a very long history as a sacred site.

Two parallel small canals/ditches in the Beemster Polder, with a strip of field between them, a fence across the near end of it. Trees on either side.

Droogmakerij de Beemster (Beemster Polder)

A landscape exemplifying creative Dutch land reclamation.

Gently rolling hills covered with rows of grapevines, very green, and a small village on one of the hills with a tall church spire.

Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene

A uniquely beautiful landscape of hills and valleys, with vineyards and wineries producing world-famous Prosecco wines.

A view of Český Krumlov Castle with the red roofs of the town in front of it. The castle is very large and has a round tower rising quite high above it.

Historic Center of Český Krumlov

An intact and very charming medieval city surrounding a large 13th-century castle with Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements.

View of Valtice Castle: white stone, about 4 stories tall and symmetrical, with a small tower over an ornate central archway and wings extending forward on both sides of the central archway. In front, a round fountain.

Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape

Two castles and the extensive grounds, gardens and outbuildings around them form a harmonious man-made cultural landscape.

Harlech castle, in this view, has two round corner towers still more or less intact, and the wall between them too, with a doorway and two rows of windows above that.

Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd

Four castles in Wales, fine examples of medieval defensive architecture, all built under orders of King Edward I.

The castle and its walls of stone, perched dramatically on a small peak, with a huge view in the distance.

San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano

The world’s oldest republic, a tiny surviving city-state on a mountain surrounded by Italy.

A pretty red-painted colonial building: one story, with a triangular pediment over the central entrance. Above the pediment, a tall tower, almost as tall as the building is long, with a clock halfway up and a domed top.

Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison

A city and military complex that exemplify Caribbean cities of the British colonial period in terms of their architecture and layout.

A view down onto a barren landscape with at least two craters visible, and a peak beyond them.

Mount Etna

An ancient and still active volcano, influential in the sciences of volcanology and geology.

The church is primarily rectangular shapes, with no high church tower, but all of the edges - the roof lines and the windows - are embellished with detailed gothic-style stone lacework.

Monastery of Batalha

A well-preserved and impressive masterpiece of Late Flamboyant Gothic architecture with Manueline Baroque elements.

People at the bottom of the photo look up at the large waterfall behind them which fills the rest of the picture.

Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area

A spectacular landscape of karst landforms, lakes and waterfalls, home to a range of endangered species.

A cluster of red earth buildings with few windows, on the side of a hill. Decorative features carved around the tops of the buildings. Above them, on top of the hill, stone walls of a fortress.

Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou

A largely intact earthen fortified village that lends insight into traditional Moroccan life.

A stone bridge across a river, made of 3 rows of Romanesque arches. The bottom and middle rows are quite large arches; the top row has more arches and they're considerably smaller.

Pont du Gard (Roman Aqueduct)

A 3-tiered stone aqueduct and bridge that demonstrates Roman-era construction processes.

In a museum, on a small stand, a carved statue of a cow or ox. It's quite detailed in terms of the muscles that show, and the animal's face. It is missing two legs.

Archaeological Site of Olympia

Ruins of an important temple complex dedicated to Zeus, and the site of the first Olympic games.

Below where this photo was shot is a line of large statues of saints along the edge of the church's roof. Beyond that is Saint Peter's square, which is round, with pillared colonnades around the sides, except the far section which is open to a straight boulevard. The city of Rome spreads very far in the distance.

Vatican City

A tiny city-state with a long history at the center of the Catholic Church and containing magnificent works of art and architecture.

A small fishing boat in Ha Long Bay, in front of two islands connected by a small stretch of sand. Between them more sea is visible.

Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba Archipelago

A stunning natural landscape and seascape of tall limestone pillars and islands.

A large flat-sided rock outcropping with a clearly visible drawing of an antelope of some sort on the left - it must be quite big given the distance to the stone - and a somewhat less clear image on the right, also of an antelope. At Tsodilo Hills in Botswana.

Tsodilo

Rock formations bearing a huge collection of petroglyphs spanning thousands of years.

A view from the North rim of the Grand Canyon: trees and bushes in the foreground, then a big view of the canyon, with its carved horizontal layers of reddish rock.

Grand Canyon National Park

A vast gorge cut over the ages by the Colorado River, revealing 2 billion years of geologic history.

A view along the Seine seen from one bank. Below, lower than street level, is a bank with 2 rows of cafe tables capped with umbrellas. Between the cafe tables and the water is a path with people walking and biking, and a railing along the water. A tourist boat passes under a bridge over the river.

Paris, Banks of the Seine

A 365-hectare corridor that encompasses many of the most famous sights in Paris, spanning centuries of the city’s development.

The classic view of the Machu Picchu ruins: On a ridge that ends in a sharp peak, the steep walls of what was the citadel form terraces in the steep sides of the ridge. On a small flat area along the top of the ridge, the ruins of buildings.

Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu

Evocative Incan ruins in a magnificent mountainous setting.

A view toward the sea from El Morro shows the extreme thickness of the defensive wall.

La Fortaleza and San Juan National Historic Site in Puerto Rico

Colonial-era structures that demonstrate defensive architecture as it was adapted from European designs for a tropical environment.

Persepolis

Ruins of what was a magnificent palace complex over 2000 years ago, capital of the Achaemenid Empire.

The Rietveld Schröderhuis is all flat surfaces in squares and rectangles. Two stories tall, made of concrete, painted in large areas of gray and white, with a few small vertical and horizontal elements in red and yellow. This view is from The front: a large white vertical panel in the center, a white horizontal panel on the left and grey on the right, large windows.

Rietveld Schröderhuis (Rietveld Schröder House)

A 1920s family house exemplifying the ideals of the De Stijl group of architects and artists.

An exterior view of the Plantin-Moretus Museum's courtyard: red brick, 2-3 stories high, with 2 gables visible, and a portico along the ground floor.

Plantin-Moretus House-Workshops-Museum Complex

300 years of printing history and domestic life, with art by Rubens.

A hiker stands on a rocky trail in Sagarmantha National Park. She carries a backpack and leans on two walking sticks as she looks at the scenery: a view of a rocky, snow-capped mountain peak.

Sagarmatha National Park

Breathtakingly beautiful snow-capped mountains, including Mt Everest; endangered species; and a Nepali Sherpa population that practices Tibetan Buddhism.

In Valley of Flowers National Park, a field of pink flowers in the foreground, a range of mountains in the background, clouds hanging low over the peaks.

Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks

A vast nature reserve with breathtaking scenery, perfect for intrepid nature lovers.

A very elegant central entrance: stairs up to an arched doorway, a rose window above that, rows of statues on the ground floor and above the door, three square towers on top, all with detailed carved ornamentation. The rest of the building is much smaller and extends on both sides out of the picture, two stories tall with simple rows of windows.

Monastery of Alcobaça

A masterpiece of Gothic Cistercian art and architecture.

View along a cobbled street in Lyon, with a few arched storefronts in the foreground.

Historic Site of Lyon

A city with 2000 years of history visible in its urban center’s architecture.

A long building with a row of columns all along the front like a Greek temple. In front of it, a fountain.

Museumsinsel (Museum Island), Berlin

5 museums that demonstrate the evolution of museums and museum design.

View down a canal with a range of medieval-era buildings one either side.

Historic Centre of Brugge

A completely intact, mostly Gothic, core of a medieval trading city.

Part of the "palace" complex shows 3 buildings, one story, built of stone, standing on a a stepped platform, also of stone.

Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque

Mayan ruins, outstanding particularly because of their well-preserved architecture and elegant art.

Rapa Nui National Park

Also known as Easter Island, famous for its huge stone statues of human heads.

A path through lush greenery, trees on either side, a field of flowers straight ahead and to the right, mostly purple and whilte.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

An extensive tropical garden that has evolved since its founding in the colonial period to become a world-class scientific institution.

Looking down a long row of houses, all with about 4 stories, all painted in pastel colors, all with decorative gables and shops on the ground floor.

Historic Centers of Stralsund and Wismar

Remarkable collections of “Brick Gothic” churches and other buildings unique to these former Hanseatic ports.