Gorham's Cave Complex | UK

 

The steep limestone cliffs on the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar contain four caves with archaeological and paleontological deposits that provide evidence of Neanderthal occupation over a span of more than 100,000 years. This exceptional testimony to the cultural traditions of the Neanderthals is seen notably in evidence of the hunting of birds and marine animals for food, the use of feathers for ornamentation and the presence of abstract rock engravings. Scientific research on these sites has already contributed substantially to debates about Neanderthal and human evolution. 

Year of Inscription: 2016

Historic Quarter of the City of Colonia del Sacramento | Uruguay

Founded by the Portuguese in 1680 on the Río de la Plata, the city was of strategic importance in resisting the Spanish. After being disputed for a century, it was finally lost by its founders. The well-preserved urban landscape illustrates the successful fusion of the Portuguese, Spanish and post-colonial styles.

Year of Inscription: 1995

Old and New Towns of Edinburgh | UK

Edinburgh has been the Scottish capital since the 15th century. It has two distinct areas: the Old Town, dominated by a medieval fortress; and the neoclassical New Town, whose development from the 18th century onwards had a far-reaching influence on European urban planning. The harmonious juxtaposition of these two contrasting historic areas, each with many important buildings, is what gives the city its unique character.

Year of Inscription: 1995

Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz | Germany

The Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz is an exceptional example of landscape design and planning of the Age of the Enlightenment, the 18th century. Its diverse components - outstanding buildings, landscaped parks and gardens in the English style, and subtly modified expanses of agricultural land - serve aesthetic, educational, and economic purposes in an exemplary manner.

Year of Inscription: 2000

Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower | Azerbaijan

*sent from Czechia

Built on a site inhabited since the Palaeolithic period, the Walled City of Baku reveals evidence of Zoroastrian, Sasanian, Arabic, Persian, Shirvani, Ottoman, and Russian presence in cultural continuity. The Inner City (Icheri Sheher) has preserved much of its 12th-century defensive walls. The 12th-century Maiden Tower (Giz Galasy) is built over earlier structures dating from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, and the 15th-century Shirvanshahs' Palace is one of the pearls of Azerbaijan's architecture.

Year of Inscription: 2000

Peruaçu River Canyon | Brazil

Located in northern Minas Gerais and featuring dramatic karst landscapes, vast caves, and rich biodiversity, the park’s horizontal cave systems, formed in carbonate rock, reveal striking speleothems, collapsed dolines, limestone arches, and underground rivers. Developed in the stable São Francisco craton, the landscape reflects major climatic and geological changes from the Plio-Pleistocene. The park lies at the intersection of the Cerrado, Caatinga, and Atlantic Forest biomes, supporting over 2,000 plant and animal species, including many threatened ones.

Year of Inscription: 2025

Sítio Roberto Burle Marx | Brazil

Situated in the western region of Rio de Janeiro, the property embodies a successful project developed over more than 40 years by landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994), a “landscape laboratory” to create “living works of art” using native plants and drawing on Modernist ideas. Began in 1949, the property encompasses extensive landscapes, gardens, buildings and collections, which feature the key characteristics that came to define Burle Marx’s landscape gardens and influenced the development of modern gardens internationally. The site is characterized by sinuous forms, exuberant mass planting, architectural plant arrangements, dramatic colour contrasts, use of tropical plants, and the incorporation of elements of traditional folk culture. By the end of the 1960s, the site housed the most representative collection of Brazilian plants, alongside other rare tropical species. In the site, 3,500 cultivated species of tropical and subtropical flora grow in harmony with the native vegetation of the region, notably the Atlantic Forest biome and associated ecosystems, mangrove swamp and restinga (coastal tropical sandy plain). Sítio Roberto Burle Marx exhibits an ecological conception of form as a process, including social collaboration which is the basis for environmental and cultural preservation. It comprises the first modern tropical garden to be inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Year of Inscription: 2021

Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site | Brazil

Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site is located in central Rio de Janeiro and encompasses the entirety of Jornal do Comércio Square. It is in the former harbour area of Rio de Janeiro in which the old stone wharf was built for the landing of enslaved Africans reaching the South American continent from 1811 onwards. An estimated 900,000 Africans arrived in South America via Valongo. The site is composed of several archaeological layers, the lowest of which consists of floor pavings in pé de moleque style, attributed to the original Valongo Wharf. It is the most important physical trace of the arrival of African slaves on the American continent.

Year of Inscription: 2017

Hill Forts of Rajasthan (Jaisalmer Fort) | India

 

The serial site, situated in the state of Rajastahan, includes six majestic forts in Chittorgarh; Kumbhalgarh; Sawai Madhopur; Jhalawar; Jaipur, and Jaisalmer. The ecclectic architecture of the forts, some up to 20 kilometres in circumference, bears testimony to the power of the Rajput princely states that flourished in the region from the 8th to the 18th centuries. Enclosed within defensive walls are major urban centres, palaces, trading centres and other buildings including temples that often predate the fortifications within which developed an elaborate courtly culture that supported learning, music and the arts. Some of the urban centres enclosed in the fortifications have survived, as have many of the site's temples and other sacred buildings. The forts use the natural defenses offered by the landscape: hills, deserts, rivers, and dense forests. They also feature extensive water harvesting structures, largely still in use today.

Year of Inscription: 2013

Kaziranga National Park | India

In the heart of Assam, this park is one of the last areas in eastern India undisturbed by a human presence. It is inhabited by the world's largest population of one-horned rhinoceroses, as well as many mammals, including tigers, elephants, panthers and bears, and thousands of birds.

Year of Inscription: 1985

Keoladeo National Park | India

 

This former duck-hunting reserve of the Maharajas is one of the major wintering areas for large numbers of aquatic birds from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China and Siberia. Some 364 species of birds, including the rare Siberian crane, have been recorded in the park.

Year of Inscription: 1985

Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park | India

 

A concentration of largely unexcavated archaeological, historic and living cultural heritage properties cradled in an impressive landscape which includes prehistoric (chalcolithic) sites, a hill fortress of an early Hindu capital, and remains of the 16th-century capital of the state of Gujarat. The site also includes, among other vestiges, fortifications, palaces, religious buildings, residential precincts, agricultural structures and water installations, from the 8th to 14th centuries. The Kalikamata Temple on top of Pavagadh Hill is considered to be an important shrine, attracting large numbers of pilgrims throughout the year. The site is the only complete and unchanged Islamic pre-Mughal city.

Year of Inscription: 2004

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary | India

On a gentle slope in the foothills of the Himalayas, where wooded hills give way to alluvial grasslands and tropical forests, the Manas sanctuary is home to a great variety of wildlife, including many endangered species, such as the tiger, pygmy hog, Indian rhinoceros and Indian elephant.

Year of Inscription: 1985

Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region (Jáchymov Mining Landscape) | Czechia

Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří (Ore Mountains) spans a region in south-eastern Germany (Saxony) and north-western Czechia, which contains a wealth of several metals exploited through mining from the Middle Ages onwards. The region became the most important source of silver ore in Europe from 1460 to 1560. Mining was the trigger for technological and scientific innovations transferred worldwide. Tin was historically the second metal to be extracted and processed at the site. At the end of the 19th century, the region became a major global producer of uranium. The cultural landscape of the Ore Mountains has been deeply shaped by 800 years of almost continuous mining, from the 12th to the 20th century, with mining, pioneering water management systems, innovative mineral processing and smelting sites, and mining cities.

Year of Inscription: 2019

Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region (Abertamy – Boží Dar – Horní Blatná – Mining Landscape) | Czechia

Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří (Ore Mountains) spans a region in south-eastern Germany (Saxony) and north-western Czechia, which contains a wealth of several metals exploited through mining from the Middle Ages onwards. The region became the most important source of silver ore in Europe from 1460 to 1560. Mining was the trigger for technological and scientific innovations transferred worldwide. Tin was historically the second metal to be extracted and processed at the site. At the end of the 19th century, the region became a major global producer of uranium. The cultural landscape of the Ore Mountains has been deeply shaped by 800 years of almost continuous mining, from the 12th to the 20th century, with mining, pioneering water management systems, innovative mineral processing and smelting sites, and mining cities.

Year of Inscription: 2019