Each year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reviews nominations and selects new sites of “Outstanding Universal Value” for its World Heritage List. This week, the organization announced 24 new UNESCO World Heritage sites by 2024, ranging from historic buildings and archaeological spaces to herbal and cultural wonders.
UNESCO World Heritage designation is helping to protect sites of profound importance for future generations. In total, the list includes 1,223 households in approximately 170 countries. “What makes the World Heritage concept remarkable is its universal application,” the organization’s website says. “World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, regardless of the territory in which they are located. “
The Central Axis, one of the last World Heritage Sites, extends from north to south the historic center of Beijing.
The new UNESCO World Heritage sites added to the list this year include archaeological sites in South Africa’s Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces that “provide the most varied and best-preserved known evidence of the progression of fashionable human behavior, dating back 162,000 years; ” the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil, whose magnificent landscape of dunes and lagoons is of “rare beauty” of significant biodiversity value and the historic architectural ensemble of the Royal Court of Tiébélé, in Burkina Faso.
UNESCO also added Tell Umm Amer, an ancient monastery located in the Gaza Strip, to the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger. Founded by Saint Hilarion, it is one of the oldest sites in the Middle East and is home to the first monastic network in the Holy Land. The site’s dual designation recognizes “the price of the site and the desire to protect it from danger” in the context of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, UNESCO said in a statement.
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