New additions to Unesco’s World Heritage Sites have been announced for 2025 – with 26 properties, including Bavarian palaces in Germany and a Brazilian river canyon, now featured on the list.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, better known as Unesco, inscribes world heritage properties it considers as having “outstanding universal value”.
Unesco’s World Heritage Committee met for its 47th meeting from 6 to 16 July 2025 in Paris, France.
Of 32 nominations this year, 21 cultural, four natural and one mixed property were granted World Heritage status.
The Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria – Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee – built between 1864 and 1886 were added to the list as they “reflect the romantic and eclectic spirit of the era”.
Unesco said that the palaces, open to the public since Ludwig died in 1886, “showcase historicist styles and advanced 19th-century techniques” and remain “major cultural landmarks”.
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Elsewhere in Europe, the Minoan Palatial Centres in Greece, Megaliths of Carnac and of the shores of Morbihan, France, the Funerary Tradition in the Prehistory of Sardinia and Denmark’s Møns Klint also made the list of newcomers.
The Minoan archaeological sites on Crete were found to highlight “the complexity of the Minoans’ social structure” while the Danish chalk cliffs host “diverse flora and fauna”, including the almost-threatened Large Blue butterfly.
As for the rest of the world, twelve major fortifications– the Maratha Military Landscapes of India – have been granted world heritage status for their “key role in the Marathas’s rise as a major political and military force”.
China’s Xixia Imperial Tombs similarly featured. The nine imperial mausoleums, 271 subordinate tombs and 32 flood control structures became a “multicultural civilisation modelled on Chinese imperial traditions”
Unesco said that this property reflects the Xixia dynasty’s religious and socio-political…
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