UNESCO/Uproxx
Travel fans and geography lovers, wait no longer! UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites has finally arrived! Each year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization selects sites that have cultural, or historical value, or some other element of importance to the human race (i.e. outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble, or landscape, a place with outstanding natural beauty or phenomena, etc.) and those sites receive international protections that preserve them for study and appreciation.
This year’s list feature 19 brand new locations and one expansion of an old site. The coolest part of UNESCO’s list is that it doesn’t just feature man-made ingenuity or nature’s wonders, but it’s a cohesive collection of both, resulting in some of the world’s hottest spots that are sure to trigger your wanderlust.
Here are our ten favs from the list:
Hidden Christian Temples In Nagasaki (Japan)
When you think about religion in Japan, you probably don’t think about Christian temples and castles, but they definitely exist. In the northwestern part of Kyushu island in Nagasaki, ten villages, Hara Castle, and a cathedral — all built between the 16th and 19th centuries — reflect the earliest efforts of Christian missionaries and settlers to convert the region. Quite obviously, their efforts failed (including persecution and prohibition of the Christian faith up until 1873), but they left behind some beautiful art and architecture.
Pimachiowin Aki (Canada)
Pimachiowin Aki, translated as “The Land That Gives Life,” forms part of the ancestral home of the Anishinaabeg, an indigenous people surviving through fishing, hunting, and gathering. The forrested area includes wetlands, lakes, and rivers, and keeps the people’s cultural tradition of Ji-ganawendamang Gidakiiminaan (“keeping the land”) by honoring the gifts of the Creator, respecting all forms of life, and maintaining harmonious relations with others.
Göbekli Tepe (Turkey)
Hunter-gatherers in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic age between 9,600 and 8,200 BC are responsible for these monumental circular and rectangular megalithic structures, located in the Germuş mountains of south-eastern Anatolia.
Naumburg Cathedral (Germany)
The Naumburg Cathedral is a testament to Romanesque styling, created by a workshop known as the “Naumburg Master.” This architectural beauty demonstrates the stylistic transition from late Romanesque to early Gothic eras and reflects changes in religious practice when cathedral architecture exhibited the appearance of science and nature, not just religious imagery.
Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirken (Germany)
The remains of the emporium (trading town) of Hedeby fall under the category of “outstanding universal value,” containing traces of roads, buildings, cemeteries and a harbor dating back to the 1st and early 2nd millennia CE. This location lent itself to trade between the Frankish Empire in the South and the Danish kingdom in the North, making Hedeby the essential trading hub between continental Europe and Scandinavia as well as between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
In layman’s terms: “There were Vikings all over the place.” And that’s just cool in and of itself.
Al-Ahsa Oasis (Saudi Arabia)
The Middle East definitely takes one of the top spots as far as cool architecture goes, and the Al-Ahsa Oasis in no different. The evolving landscape is a serial property comprising gardens, canals, springs, wells, a drainage lake, as well as historical buildings, urban fabric and archaeological sites. Boasting 2.5 million date palms, it is the largest oasis in the world, making it a unique and exceptional example of human interaction with the environment.
Ancient City of Qalhat (Oman)
Located on the east coast of the Sultanate of Oman, Qalhat was a major port on the east coast of Arabia between the 11th and 15th centuries CE. It’s surrounded by inner and outer walls, as well as areas beyond the ramparts where you’ll be able to find necropolises. Historically, the city was majorly important — linking trade between the east coast of Arabia, East Africa, India, China and South-east Asia.
Caliphate City of Medina Azahara (Iberian Peninsula)
This city was built in the mid-10th century CE by the Umayyad dynasty as the seat of the Caliphate of Cordoba and prospered for a long time before it was laid to waste during the civil war that put an end to the Caliphate in 1009-10. The remains of the city were not rediscovered until the early 20th century as a complete urban ensemble that features infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water systems, buildings, decorative elements, and everyday objects that provide in-depth knowledge of the now vanished Western Islamic civilization of Al-Andalus at its most prosperous.
Chiribiquete National Park – “The Maloca of the Jaguar” (Colombia)
Chiribiquete National Park is the largest protected area in Colombia, and one of the defining features of the park is the presence of tepuis (the Native American word for table-top mountains) that feature more than 75,000 paintings, spanning more than 20,000 years to the present, on the walls of the 60 rock shelters around their bases.
Indigenous communities in the area consider the drawings sacred, as these paintings depict hunting scenes, battles, dances, and ceremonies that are believed to signify worship of the jaguar.
Fanjingshan (China)
Located within the Wuling mountain range in Guizhou Province in southwest China stands Fanjingshan, an island of metamorphic rock ranging in altitude between 500 meters and 2,570 meters above sea level and giving a home to highly diverse types of vegetation and relief.
Fanjingshan has the largest and most contiguous primeval beech forest in the subtropical region, and the site’s isolation has led to a high degree of biodiversity with endemic species and endangered species, many of which date back to the Tertiary Period.
Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley (Mexico)
An original habitat of Mesoamerica, the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley is the aridest or semi-arid zone with the richest biodiversity in all of North America. It is one of the main centers of diversification for cacti family, which is critically endangered worldwide, and valley harbors the densest forests of columnar cacti in the world, shaping a unique landscape that also includes agaves, yuccas, and oaks.
Agricultural settlements that once thrived in the arid conditions exhibit an exceptional water management system of canals, wells, aqueducts, and dams, which are the oldest in the continent.
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Those are just some of the cool sites the UNESCO list features. The complete list is sure to intrigue other travelers and lovers of the world’s hidden gems, whether they like nature, architecture, history, or just seeing something new they were not aware existed. Whatever reason each site was listed, they all live up to the title of “heritage site” by boasting a rich history that has its rightful place in shaping the world in which we live today.
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