UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has added 24 cultural and natural wonders to its esteemed World Heritage List of sites the organization deems worthy of preservation due to "outstanding universal value."
The globe-spanning crop of newly inscribed World Heritage Sites was announced this week following the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, held in New Delhi.
The UNESCO World Heritage list now has a total of 1,223 sites across 168 countries. And you thought your bucket list was long.
In addition to helping preserve and protect the places UNESCO cares about, the World Heritage List can be prime inspiration material for travelers interested in nature, history, and architecture.
Among the intriguing locations in the class of 2024, you'll find palaces and castles, archaeological ruins, ancient burial mounds, gold mines, sand dunes, caves, and wetlands.
The vast range of history covered by the newly inscribed historical sites includes everything from Italy's Appian Way—the "oldest and most important of the great roads built by the Ancient Romans"—to a cluster of "Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites" related to South Africa's 20th-century struggle for "human rights, liberation, and reconciliation."
For elaborate living spaces, take your pick between northeastern Germany's 19th-century Schwerin Castle complex—with its 38 different structural elements, including a palace, manor houses, sacred buildings, and an ornamental lake—and the colossal, interconnected caverns of Malaysia's Niah National Park, where prehistoric rock paintings, burial grounds, and other archaeological features suggest the "longest known records of human interaction with rainforest."
And for stunning landscapes, it's hard to top northeastern Brazil's Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, an otherworldly stretch of shifting white sand dunes and lagoons of varying colors, sizes, and depths.
The full list of 24 UNESCO World Heritage Sites added in 2024 is below. Click on the name of any site for more information.
New UNESCO World Heritage Sites Added in 2024
- • Beijing Central Axis urban complex, China
- • Brâncusi Monumental Ensemble of Târgu Jiu, Romania
- • Kenozero Lake, Russia
- • Frontiers of the Roman Empire - Dacia, Romania
- • Hegmataneh archaeological remains, Iran
- • Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites, South Africa
- • Melka Kunture and Balchit archaeological and paleontological sites, Ethiopia
- • Moidams burial system, India
- • Phu Phrabat stone works, Thailand
- • Royal Court of Tiébélé architectural complex, Burkina Faso
- • Sado Island Gold Mines, Japan
- • Saint Hilarion Monastery/Tell Umm Amer monastic site ruins, Palestine
- • Schwerin Residence Ensemble, Germany
- • Niah National Park’s Caves Complex, Malaysia
- • Al-Faw Archaeological Area, Saudi Arabia
- • Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa
- • Historic Town and Archaeological Site of Gedi, Kenya
- • Umm Al-Jimal settlement ruin, Jordan
- • Via Appia (Appian Way), Italy
- • Badain Jaran Desert, China
- • Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil
- • The Flow Country bog, United Kingdom
- • Vjetrenica Cave, Ravno, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- • Te Henua Enata, the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
Pictured at top: Schwerin Castle in Germany, Niah National Park in Malaysia, and Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil
