Here are some of the newest UNESCO World Heritage sites : NPR
Orango National Park on the Bijagós archipelago off the coast of Guinea-Bissau is a newly designated World Heritage site.
Hallio & Van Ingen / Ibap / UNESCO appointment file
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Hallio & Van Ingen / Ibap / UNESCO appointment file
Twenty-six sites were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, designating their cultural and natural importance.
This year’s locations include a sacred mountain in Malawi; petroglyphs in South Korea; Rest of a port and forts of the XVIIth century Royal Port, Jamaica; The king’s palaces in Germany; And a canyon of the river in Brazil noted for its biodiversity.
The World Heritage List, which now has 1,248 locations, includes “cultural and natural properties of exceptional universal value”. Sites have been added almost every year since 1978. UNESCO is a United Nations Culture, Science and Education Agency.
Representatives of 21 countries of the World Heritage Committee met this month in Paris to finalize which locations to add to the list. Countries with World Heritage sites must commit to preserving them; Countries with designated sites could also receive funding to help this conservation.
Here is a selection of some of the locations added this year:
Bavarian palace
The Neuschwanstein castle is one of the four complexes of the palace included in the list of world heritage sites.
Appointment file J. Beck / UNESCO
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Appointment file J. Beck / UNESCO
According to UNESCO, King Ludwig II of Bavaria built these great palaces between 1864 and 1886 in what is now Germany, according to UNESCO. He went up to the throne at the age of 18 and was called the “crazy king”, because of his long diatribes, hallucinations and paranoia. The four palaces of palaces listed are called Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee. The palaces are now a tourist attraction, “records in the stone of the ideal fantastic world that the king has built as a refuge of reality”, according to a biography on a website for the palaces.
Imperial tombs in China
An aerial view of the mausoleum n ° 4, which is part of the imperial tombs of the XIXIA dynasty.
Administrative office of the zone falls XIXIA of the appointment file of Yinchuan City / UNESCO
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Administrative office of the zone falls XIXIA of the appointment file of Yinchuan City / UNESCO
The necropolis is located in the Ningxia region of the North Center of China. The people of the Xixia dynasty are buried among the “nine imperial mausoleums, 271 subordinate tombs, an architectural complex in the North and 32 flood control structures”, as the USCO describes. The dynasty lasted from 1038 to 1227, when it was destroyed by the Mongolian army of Gengis Khan.
The Chinese government said that the site shows “Xixia’s crucial role as a key distribution center on silk roads during the 11th and 13th centuries”. He added that the location is “the largest, highest and most intact archaeological site of period XIXIA which has survived to the present day”.
Remains of the 17th century royal port, Jamaica
Fort Charles museum in Port Royal, illustrated in 2012. The fort was built in the 1600s.
Mladen Antonov / AFP via Getty Images
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Mladen Antonov / AFP via Getty Images
Port Royal, in southeast Jamaica, was a large English port city in the 17th century. According to UNESCO, it was a transatlantic trade center, which included Africans enslaved. It was also a center for pirates. An earthquake of 1692 pushed a large part of the city underwater.
Ecosystems of the Bijagós Islands
Wildlife in Orango National Park on the Bijagós archipelago.
Enrique López-Tapia de Inés / Ibap / UNESCO Nomination File
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Enrique López-Tapia de Inés / Ibap / UNESCO Nomination File
The Bijagós archipelago, off the coast of Guinea, is known for its biodiversity. It houses “green and endangered leather turtles, lamantins, dolphins and more than 870,000 migratory shore birds”, explains UNESCO.
Cambodian genocide memorials
People watch the skulls at Choeung Ek Memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2018. The location is part of a newly designated World Heritage site.
Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP via Getty Images
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Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP via Getty Images
The communist regime Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death of some 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s. Two old prisons and an execution site are included in the designation of the world list of heritage. An international court ended his work in 2022, holding only three upper members of Khmer Rouge responsible for the crimes of the regime.
The full list of new sites for 2025
The committee also approved the extension of two existing national parks which were already listed. Vietnam Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park has been extended to include Hin Nam National Park adjacent to Laos. And the Isimanto wet park in South Africa, listed in 1999, was extended to include Maputo National Park in Mozambique.
