It takes something special to make it onto the list of Unesco’s World Heritage Sites. Since the first list was announced in 1978 – among the inaugural crop of 12 was the Galapagos Islands and Yellowstone National Park – it has grown to almost 1,200 entries across the globe.
There are strict conditions to be considered. Sites must “be of outstanding universal value”, and meet one of 10 criteria set out by the UN body. These include representing “a masterpiece of human creative genius”, containing “superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance”, or being “the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity”.
With such a wealth of heritage spots to discover, it’s easy to include them in your travel plans. If you’re unsure where to go, opt for the locations that give real bang for your buck. These are the 10 most incredible Unesco World Heritage Sites to visit.
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It is said that it took 20,000 stone carvers, masons, and artists to complete the Taj Mahal
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Construction on this icon began in 1632 by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, as a tomb for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Today, the Taj Mahal is considered one of the world’s foremost examples of Muslim art and architecture. The scale of the tomb is so large and the attention to detail so precise, that the higher inscriptions are slightly larger than those below in order for them to appear the same size when viewed from below.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world
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Stretching for 1,430 miles, the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system. Made up of 2,900 individual reefs, it is home to over 1,500 fish species and 5,000 species of mollusc. It was made a Unesco World Heritage site in 1981 and is now even more accessible after Google launched its Underwater Street View feature in 2014.
Stonehenge remains one of the UK’s most recognisable landmarks
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Thought to be between 4,000 and 5,000 years old, Stonehenge attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year. How it was made is still up for debate – theories as to how the 25-ton stones were transported to the area from a quarry, thought to be 25 miles away, range from supernatural intervention to the use…
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