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World Heritage Sites and the UNESCO Convention

World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. These sites can be ancient ruins or historical structures, buildings, cities, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, monuments, mountains, wilderness areas, memorial sites, and others.

The concept of World Heritage Sites was first proposed in 1959 when the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO's assistance in protecting and rescuing endangered monuments and sites. This led to the launch of an international campaign to save Nubian monuments in 1960. The campaign concluded successfully by 1980, with Egypt as a gesture of gratitude for countries that contributed significantly to its success, donating four temples: the Temple of Dendur moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Temple of Debod to Parque del Oeste in Madrid, the Temple Of Taffeh to Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, and the Temple of Ellesyia to Museo Egizio in Turin. The project cost approximately $80 million (equivalent to $312.6 million in 2025), with about $40 million spent on a new building at the same location as the original one.

The World Heritage Trust, also known as "World Heritage Foundation" or the World Heritage Fund, is a non-profit organization that promotes conservation of natural and scenic areas. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) developed similar proposals in 1968, which were presented at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972.

UNESCO World Heritage Places

The Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, approved by UNESCO in 1972, proposed a plan to protect cultural and natural property worldwide. As of October 2013, there are 981 sites listed across 160 countries under the UNESCO World Heritage List. The list is alphabetically classified by country.

Some notable examples include:

- **Afghanistan**: Minaret and archaeological vestiges from Jam (2002), Cultural landscape and archaeological vestiges of the Bamiyan Valley (2003)
- **South Africa**: Natural park in the wetland Saint-Lucie (1999), Robben Island (1999), Hominid fossil sites from Sterkfontein, Swartkrank, Kromdraai, and their surroundings (1999,