Activities
The World Heritage Centre is at the forefront of the international community’s efforts to protect and preserve.
Biological diversity underpins ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services essential for human well-being. World Heritage properties are the most outstanding places on the planet and constitute a ...
The Urban Heritage Atlas is an atlas and an archive that documents and explains, visually, narratively and with analytical maps, the diversity and uniqueness of the world’s historic cities and settlements. As such, ...
The World Heritage Cities Programme is one of six thematic programmes formally approved and monitored by the World Heritage Committee. The programme concerns the development of a theoretical framework for urban ...
Understanding, managing and conserving World Heritage properties requires up-to-date knowledge and well-honed skills. To help build the capacity of all stakeholders in World Heritage – whether they are ...
The UNESCO Thematic Indicators for Culture in the 2030 Agenda (Culture|2030 Indicators) is a framework of thematic indicators whose purpose is to measure and monitor the progress of culture’s enabling contribution ...
50 flagship marine protected areas of Outstanding Universal Value: Beacons of Hope In a Changing Ocean
Across the extractives, finance, insurance and hydropower sectors, among others, major public and private companies and industry associations have committed to protect UNESCO World Heritage sites. They have often ...
Dive into Heritage is creating an innovative online platform that leverages digital technologies to safeguard and promote World Heritage sites and its related intangible heritage, and transmit it to future ...
Funded by the Flanders UNESCO Trustfund (FUT), an online geographic information system for World Heritage is being developed.
The Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL Recommendation) is an additional tool to integrate policies and practices of conservation of the built environment into the wider goals of urban development in ...
Covering an area estimated at 1.62 million km2, the forests of Central Africa are home to vital biodiversity for the planet and play a central role in climate regulation and carbon sequestration.
UNESCO launches “50 Minds for The Next 50” to convene fifty leading, innovative, bold, respected thinkers of our times from diverse disciplines for the most interdisciplinary discussion on World Heritage ever to be ...
Basic Texts of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, Edition December 2023
In recent years, the framework for training and research in the field of World Heritage has changed significantly. Among the factors that have contributed to these rapid changes, is the emerging of many new ...
World Heritage properties are affected by the impacts of climate change at present and in the future. Their continued preservation requires understanding these impacts to their Outstanding Universal Value and ...
There exist a great variety of Landscapes that are representative of the different regions of the world. Combined works of nature and humankind, they express a long and intimate relationship between peoples and ...
UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee have issued new guidance for assessing impacts from projects that could potentially affect the planet’s most precious heritage places. Designed ...
The goal of this Resource Manual is to help State Parties to manage natural values within World Heritage properties. As such it is aimed at natural and mixed World Heritage properties as well as cultural landscapes.
The World Heritage Convention is one of the most successful international instruments to protect the most extraordinary natural places on the planet, characterized by their natural beauty or outstanding ...
Post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction became an increasingly important issue after the destruction of cultural heritage sites in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nepal, Syria, and Yemen. ...
World Heritage properties and heritage sites in general are exposed to the impacts of natural and man-triggered catastrophic events, which threaten their integrity and may compromise their value. The loss or ...
Many cultural and natural World Heritage sites are home to indigenous peoples. As the UNESCO policy on engaging with indigenous peoples recognizes, World Heritage sites are often located within land managed by ...
Heritage was long absent from the mainstream sustainable development debate despite its crucial importance to societies and the wide acknowledgment of its great potential to contribute to social, economic and ...
The UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme represents a new approach based on dialogue and stakeholder cooperation where planning for tourism and heritage management is integrated at a destination ...
The UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme, initiated as a UNESCO special project in 1994, gives young people a chance to voice their concerns and to become involved in the protection of our common cultural and ...
This large format full-color map features the World Heritage sites and brief explanations of the World Heritage Convention and the World Heritage conservation programmes, as well as superb photos of World Heritage ...
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are islands of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are some of the most beautiful places on Earth, with atolls of white sand beaches, mountain ...
In recent years, it has become an established practice that a forum is organised in conjunction with each World Heritage Committee session. Since the 41st session of the Committee (Krakow, 2017), site managers from ...
World HeritageVolunteers Initiative Within the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme, the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Initiative was launched in 2008 in collaboration with the Coordinating ...
The overarching vision of this World Heritage project is to establish links and channels of communication among World Heritage Site Managers around the world by providing a web and a social media platform to share ...
Education is the key to personal fulfilment, development, conservation, peace and well-being. Through education, young people can find new ways to build commitment and strengthen action in favour of preserving our ...
UNESCO advocates the reaffirmation of identity, mutual respect, dialogue, and unity in diversity, solidarity and a positive interaction among the cultures of the world. This is valid for all areas, including for ...
Tentative Lists are inventories of sites forming part of the cultural and natural heritage of a State Party, which have a strong potential to be inscribed on the World Heritage List. These national inventories are ...
The World Heritage Committee at its 41st session launched the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting and requested the World Heritage Centre ensure a holistic approach across all regions, by developing tools and guidance ...
Article 4 of the World Heritage Convention refers to the conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and indicates that “Each State Party to this Convention recognizes that the duty of ensuring ...
Based on a strong appeal from national and local stakeholders, the 2030 Agenda adopted by the UN General Assembly integrated, for the first time, the role of culture, through cultural heritage and creativity, as an ...
50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention (16 November 2022): World Heritage as a source of resilience, humanity and innovation
Environmental DNA Expeditions is a global, citizen science initiative that will help measure marine biodiversity, and the impacts climate change might have on the distribution patterns of marine life, across UNESCO ...
The importance of UNESCO World Heritage Marine Sites for Global Biodiversity Facts & Figures © Adam Mitchell / Seychelles Island Foundation From the largest tropical seabird rookery to the ...
At the 43rd session in Baku (2019), the World Heritage Committee requested the State Parties “to continue reflecting on the mechanisms and tools needed to assess and guide interventions in and around urban ...
Rapid Response Facility (RRF) © Oreades The Rapid Response Facility (RRF) is a fund that provides grants to protected areas in the event of a sudden crisis. We mainly finance initiatives aimed at ...
Over the past few years, the security situation at the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex has become a major concern as several armed groups have been operating in the region, causing the evacuation of management staff in some ...
Although the overall urban fabric and townscape give Stone Town its unique character, many individual buildings of historical and architectural significance represent local architecture and building traditions. ...
Following the inscription of the Minaret and archaeological remains of Jam in the 'World Heritage List' and the 'List of the World Heritage in Danger' in 2002, the Government of Switzerland has decided to generously ...
Patrimonito Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures © Patrimonito means 'small heritage' in Spanish and the character represents a young heritage guardian. Patrimonito has been widely adopted ...
Phase III of this project aims to implement activities to ensure site security; ensure the structural stability of the two standing Giant Buddha niches; ensure adequate state of conservation of archaeological ...
New and Old Towns of Edinburgh (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)UNESCO Urban Heritage Atlas: Cultural mapping of historic cities and settlements © Chris Fleming, CC BY-SA 2.0, via ...