The Covid-19 pandemic meant that the UNESCO (United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) committee was unable to meet. This year, however, a combined review of 2020 and 2021 nominations took place at a hybrid meeting in Fuzhou, China, with more sites than usual being added to the World Heritage List. A total of 34 sites were inscribed by UNESCO for 2021, with 3 sites being extended.
Gaining a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List is a prestigious award, and recognition that a landmark has “outstanding universal value”. The ‘heritage’ of the destination can beone of three categories; cultural significance, environmental significance or a combination of both. Since the first locations were added to the list in 1978, more than 1,000 more places around the world have been named as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This honour can help a previously unknown destination increase dramatically in popularity and visitor numbers, something known as “the UNESCO effect”.
The 34 newly inscribed UNESCO World Heritage sites for 2020 and 2021 are:
- Arslantepe Mound, Turkey
- As-Salt – The Place of Tolerance and Urban Hospitality, Jordan
- Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex, Peru
- Colonies of Benevolence, Belgium, Netherlands
- Cordouan Lighthouse, France
- Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat, Iran
- Dholavira: a Harappan City, India
- Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Danube Limes (Western Segment), Austria, Germany, Slovakia
- Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Lower German Limes, Germany, Netherlands
- Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, Japan
- Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple, Telangana, India
- Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Germany
- Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera, France
- Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles, Italy
- Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences, Spain
- Petroglyphs of Lake Onega and the White Sea, Russian Federation
- Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, China
- Roșia Montană Mining Landscape, Romania
- Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region, Chile
- ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, Germany
- Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire, Côte d’Ivoire
- Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, Brazil
- The Great Spa Towns of Europe, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, UK
- The Porticoes of Bologna, Italy
- The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, UK
- The work of engineer Eladio Dieste: Church of Atlántida, Uruguay
- The works of Jože Plečnik in Ljubljana – Human Centred Urban Design, Slovenia
- Trans-Iranian Railway, Iran
- Ḥimā Cultural Area, Saudi Arabia
- Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, Northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island, Japan
- Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, Georgia
- Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats, Republic of Korea
- Ivindo National Park, Gabon
- Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, Thailand
Additionally, the 3 extended UNESCO World Heritage sites for 2020 and 2021 are:
- Dutch Water Defence Lines, Netherlands
- Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl, Mexico
- Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine
