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Unesco World Heritage list: 21 new places added in 2017

The 2017 list of Unesco World Heritage sites includes the Lake District

Wednesday 12 July 2017 12:37 BST

There are 20 new World Heritage Sites (Cultural Heritage Conservation Center of THAD)

Unesco’s World Heritage List 2017 is out, with 21 new places receiving the prestigious accolade of being declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Essentially the Oscars for sites of natural beautiful or cultural significance, the Unesco World Heritage List is reappraised every year at the annual committee meeting, which ends today.

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Show all 20

1/20New Unesco World Heritage Sites

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Lake District

The combined work of nature and human activity in the Lake District has produced a harmonious landscape in which the mountains are mirrored in the lakes. This landscape was greatly appreciated from the 18th century onwards by the Picturesque and later Romantic movements, which celebrated it in paintings, drawings and words.

Nick Bodle

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

City of Yazd

The City of Yazd is located in the middle of the Iranian plateau, close to the Spice and Silk Roads. The earthen architecture of Yazd has escaped the modernisation that destroyed many traditional earthen towns, retaining its traditional districts, the qanat system, traditional houses, bazars, hammams, mosques, synagogues, Zoroastrian temples and the historic garden of Dolat-abad.

ICHHTO

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Venetian Works of Defence

The fortifications throughout the Stato da Terra protected the Republic of Venice from other European powers to the northwest and those of the Stato da Mar protected the sea routes and ports in the Adriatic Sea to the Levant.

Alberto Ghilardi

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Valongo Wharf

Located in central Rio de Janeiro, this site 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. It is the most important physical trace of the arrival of African slaves on the American continent.

Milton Guran

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine

Located in southern Poland, one of the main mining areas of central Europe, the site includes the entire underground mine with adits, shafts, galleries and water management system.

Tarnowskie Góry Land Lovers' Association

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Taputapuātea

Taputapuātea on Ra’iatea Island is at the centre of the Polynesian Triangle, a vast portion of the Pacific Ocean dotted with islands, and the last part of the globe to be settled by humans.

SCP

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Temple Zone of Sambor Prei Kuk

The archaeological site of Sambor Prei Kuk has been identified as Ishanapura, the capital of the Chenla Empire that flourished in the late 6th and early 7th centuries CE. The vestiges of the city cover an area of 25 square km and include a walled city centre as well as numerous temples, 10 of which are octagonal and unique specimens of their genre in southeast Asia.

So Sokun Theary

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Qinghai Hoh Xil

Located in the north-eastern extremity of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in China, this is the largest and highest plateau in the world. This extensive area of alpine mountains and steppe systems is situated more than 4,500m above sea level, where sub-zero average temperatures prevail all year-round.

Peking University

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Okinoshima

Located 60km off the western coast of Kyushu island, Okinoshima is an exceptional example of the tradition of worship of a sacred island. The archaeological sites have been preserved virtually intact, and provide a chronological record of how the rituals performed there changed from the 4th to the 9th centuries CE.

World Heritage Promotion Committee

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Mbanza Kongo

When the Portuguese arrived in Mbanza Kongo in the 15th century they added stone buildings constructed using European methods to the existing landscape. Mbanza Kongo illustrates, more than anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, the profound changes caused by the introduction of Christianity and the arrival of the Portuguese into Central Africa.

INPC

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Los Alerces national park

The Los Alerces national park is located in the Andes of northern Patagonia. Successive glaciations have moulded the landscape in the region creating spectacular features such as moraines, glacial cirques and clear-water lakes.

Ricardo Villalba

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Kulangsu

Kulangsu is a tiny island located on the estuary of the Chiu-lung River facing the city of Xiamen. With the opening of a commercial port at Xiamen in 1843 and the establishment of the island as an international settlement in 1903, this island off the southern coast of the Chinese empire suddenly became an important window for Sino-foreign exchanges. Kulangsu is an exceptional example of the cultural fusion that emerged from these exchanges.

Cultural Heritage Conservation Center of THAD

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Kujataa

Kujataa is a sub-arctic farming landscape located in the southern region of Greenland. It bears witness to the cultural histories of the Norse hunter-gatherers who started arriving from Iceland in the 10th century, and of the Norse farmers, Inuit hunters and Inuit farming communities that developed from the end of the 18th century.

Christian K. Madsen

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Assumption Cathedral

The Assumption Monastery illustrates in its location and architectural composition the political and missionary programme developed by Tsar Ivan IV to extend the Moscow state. The cathedral’s frescoes are among the rarest examples of Eastern Orthodox mural paintings.

Dmitrii Karpov

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Aphrodisias

Located in southwestern Turkey, in the upper valley of the Morsynus River, the site consists of two components: the archaeological site of Aphrodisias and the marble quarries northeast of the city. The temple of Aphrodite dates from the 3rd century BC and the city was built one century later.

Aphrodisias Museum

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Swabian Jura

Modern humans first arrived in Europe 43,000 years ago during the last ice age. One of the areas where they took up residence was the Swabian Jura in southern Germany. Excavated from the 1860s, six caves have revealed items dating from 43,000 to 33,000 years ago. Among them are carved figurines of animals, musical instruments and items of personal adornment.

S. M. Heidenreich

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape

The ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape is located at the border with Botswana and Namibia. The large expanse of sand contains evidence of human occupation from the Stone Age to the present and is associated with the culture of the formally nomadic ǂKhomani San people and the strategies that allowed them to adapt to harsh desert conditions.

Francois Odendaal Productions

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Dauria

Shared between Mongolia and the Russian Federation, this site is an outstanding example of the Daurian Steppe eco-region, which extends from eastern Mongolia into Russian Siberia and north-eastern China. Cyclical climate changes with distinct dry and wet periods led to a wide diversity of species and ecosystems of global significance.

V. Kirilyuk

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Hebron/Al-Khalil

The use of a local limestone shaped the construction of the old town of Hebron/Al-Khalil during the Mamluk period between 1250 and 1517. The place became a site of pilgrimage for the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Hesham Sarsour

New Unesco World Heritage Sites

Asmara

Located at more than 2,000m above sea level, the capital of Eritrea developed from the 1890s onwards as a military outpost for the Italian colonial power. It is an exceptional example of early modernist urbanism at the beginning of the 20th century and its application in an African context.

Asmara Heritage Project

The 2017 edition was held in Krakow from 2 to 12 July. The 41st session of the World Heritage Committee decided which of 33 nominated sites, including six natural sites, 26 cultural and one that was proposed both as a natural and cultural site, were worthy of being named World Heritage Sites.

Some 20 places were added to the list, among them the Lake District in the UK. It now sits alongside the likes of the Great Barrier Reef, Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon and the Great Wall of China.

John Glen, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism said: "The Lake District is one of the UK’s most stunning and ancient landscapes and I am thrilled it has been granted World Heritage Site status. It is a unique part of the world, that combines a vibrant farming community with thousands of archaeological sites and structures that give us an amazing glimpse into our past.”

He added: "This decision will undoubtedly elevate the position of the Lake District internationally, boosting tourism and benefiting local communities and businesses."

National Trust Assistant Director for the Lake District, Mike Innerdale, told The Independent: “We are delighted that World Heritage Site status recognises the Lakes as the spiritual home of the Trust, our work to look after it over the last 120 years and how that gave rise to a global conservation movement. We now look after a fifth of the National Park on behalf of the nation, including mountains, lakes, farms, woods, land, castles and attractions like Beatrix Potter’s home.”

Here are the other 20 sites that made the cut.

Unesco World Heritage new additions

City of Yazd, Iran

Venetian Works of Defence, Croatia, Italy, Montenegro

Valongo Wharf, Brazil

Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine, Poland

Taputapuātea, France

Temple Zone of Sambor Prei Kuk, Cambodia

Qinghai Hoh Xil, China

Okinoshima, Japan

Mbanza Kongo, Angola

Los Alerces national park, Argentina

Kulangsu, China

Kujataa, Denmark

Assumption Cathedral, Russia

Aphrodisias, Turkey

Swabian Jura, Germany

ǂKhomani Cultural Landscape, South Africa

Dauria, Mongolia / Russia

Hebron/Al-Khalil, Palestine

Asmara, Eritrea

Ahmedabad, India

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