art Archives | World Heritage Sites

An arched gateway, with many white-painted houses arrayed up a hill behind it.

Medina of Tétouan

A well-preserved and lively historical quarter that shows the influences of both Arab and Andalusian culture on its art and architecture.

Semi-circular bas-relief in white stone.

Vézelay, Church and Hill

A Romanesque masterpiece and the charming village around it, historically significant in terms of medieval Christianity.

View down the nave of the church, with the ceiling painted in rectangular panels.

Abbey Church of Saint-Savin sur Gartempe

A Romanesque church painted with vivid murals dating to the 11th and 12th centuries, important in the study of medieval Christian art.

A painted arch divided into squares by decorative lines, and with pictures of people or animals within each square.

Quseir Amra

An 8th-century desert castle with unusual Umayyad-period frescoes.

Santiago de Compostela (Old Town)

Christian holy city with a 1000-year history as the endpoint of pilgrimage routes across Spain and France.

An intricately-carved temple with a tall pointy tower and a smaller tower in front of it.

Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram

Caves, temples and sculptures that represent a unique testimony to the 6th-9th-century Pallavas civilization.

Drawings of two elephants, one with a human rider on it.

Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka

Artworks spanning thousands of years and depicting animals, people, rituals etc. related to the culture of local indigenous groups.

A wide street that is a staircase, with each stair tread lined with colorful tiles.

Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto

Eight Sicilian towns that were rebuilt in a distinctive Late Baroque style after a 1693 earthquake.

The gilt temple at Preah Vihear UNESCO site in Cambodia.

Temple of Preah Vihear

An 11th-century Hindu temple complex in an isolated and dramatic location, with remarkably well-preserved architecture and art.

Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Lingapura or Chok Gargyar

10th-century temples from a short-lived capital city, origin of the Koh Ker style of sculpture.

Simple buildings with tile roofs and several very tall square towers.

Historic Centre of San Gimignano

A charming medieval town known for its tall towers and Sienese Gothic artworks.

Looking up at the gothic spires on a church.

Historic City of Toledo

A small city where influences from three different world religions are visible in its architecture and art.

A direct view down a straight garden walkway to the central entrance to the palace.

Palace and Park of Fontainebleau

A magnificent 16th-century royal palace, particularly important for its artwork.

Looking up the central stairway of one of the temples. A doorway in the center in the pointed top of the temple.

Prambanan Temple Compounds

A 9th-century complex of hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist temples with stone carvings that are masterpieces of Siva art.

Monastery buildings, striped stone, arched portico, frescoes visible inside the portico.

Rila Monastery

A monastery complex from the Bulgarian Renaissance, important to the spiritual and social life of Bulgaria.

A row of seated Buddha statues against a painted wall.

Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple

Five cave temples decorated with Buddhist paintings and sculpture, a place of pilgrimage for 2000 years.

A balloon high above one of the pyramids.

Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan

A city of magnificent pyramids and temples left by an ancient civilization.

A bridge over a pond or river, with a square tower at each end, all of it lit up in bright colors at night.

Gyeongju Historic Areas

Ruins of the capital of the ancient Silla dynasty, rich in Buddhist artworks and architecture.

A point of land and a cluster of red-roofed buildings, seen from above.

Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor

A beautiful area around the Bay of Kotor with authentic, well-preserved architecture.

Front of a church - 2 storeys, arches along the edge of the roof as well as above the entrances.

Archaeological Site of Mystras

Atmospheric ruins of a complete Late Byzantine city.

View down a long narrow room with stone walls and a glass roof. The floor is covered in a mosaic with images of people and animals.

Villa Romana del Casale

The ruins of a Roman villa with remarkably well-preserved mosaics.

A drawing of a horse, black outlines and tinted red on the body.

Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain

Some of the earliest art by the earliest humans.

A rock face covered in paintings in dark red depicting people and animals as well as boats and buildings and geometric patterns.

Chiribiquete National Park – “The Maloca of the Jaguar”

A large Amazonian forest with unusual rock formations and ancient rock paintings.

A very tall and very steep stone pyramid with a flat top.

Pre-Hispanic Town of Uxmal

Four sets of pre-Columbian ruins that exemplify Mayan art and architecture when Mayan civilization was at its height.

Ellora Caves

34 stunning stone-cut caves with carved and painted images from three different religions.

Entranceway into a shrine, with detailed carvings over the doorway, mostly painted gold, with a white carved dragon right in the center.

Shrines and Temples of Nikko

A complex of ornate and colorful religious buildings in a lovely forest setting.

A temple with a tall pyramid-shaped roof, covered in carvings.

Great Living Chola Temples

Three outstanding 11th-12th-century temples covered with carvings depicting elements of Hindu mythology.

Pilgrimage Church of Wies

A magnificent rococo church with a legend that draws the faithful to visit.

The Albi cathedral: a rather plain red-brick exterior, with simple walls and rounded towers not much higher than the main body of the cathedral. Tall narrow windows.

Episcopal City of Albi

A small city with a rich collection of Medieval and Renaissance architecture.

Four huge sitting statues, with a doorway - about 3x higher than a person and reaching to knee height on the statues - in the center. At Ramses Temple, Nubian Monuments

Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae

Magnificent temples demonstrating the power of Ancient Egyptian civilization.

Full front view of the Wurzburg Residence: a massive palace, several stories tall and extremely wide. A symmetrical design with a round dome above the entrance and smaller domes at each end.

Würzburg Residence with the Court Gardens and Residence Square

A magnificent 18th-century baroque palace and accompanying garden.

Historic Center of Vienna

An urban center with a wide range of outstanding historical architecture, viewed as the music capital of Europe.

A grand building, with pillars across its entrance and a dome in its center, with a statue in front.

Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue

Significant because of its urban landscape and influence on European architecture.

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 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.

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.