A World Heritage Site is a place (such as a building, city, complex, desert, forest, island, lake, monument, or mountain) that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as being of special cultural or physical significance. The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 UNESCO member states which are elected by the General Assembly.
UNESCO World Heritage sites
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10Old Town of Lijiang
The Old Town of Lijiang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Lijiang City, Yunnan, China. The town has a history going back more than 1,000 years and was once a confluence for trade along the "Old Tea Horse Caravan Trail".
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10Old Town of Lubeck
Lubeck is a city in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. On the river Trave, it was the leading city of the Hanseatic League and because of its extensive Brick Gothic architecture is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
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10Old Town of Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality. Often referred to as the "Pearl of the Black Sea", Nesebar is a rich city-museum defined by more than three millennia of ever-changing history.
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10Old Town of Prague
The Old Town of Prague is a medieval settlement of Prague, Czech Republic. It was separated from the outside by a semi-circular moat and wall, connected to the Vltava river at both of its ends. The moat is now covered up by the streets (from north to south-west) Revolucni, Na Prikope, and Narodni - which remain the official boundary of the cadastral community of Old Town. It is now part of Prague 1.
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10Old Town of Regensburg
Regensburg owns the largest medieval old town north of the Alps with nearly 1,500 listed buildings and a picturesque cityscape. Its most famous sights are located mainly in the Old Town.
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9Old Town of Stralsund
Stralsund was founded in 1234 and was one of the most prospering members of the medieval Hanseatic League. Since 2002, Stralsund's old town with its rich heritage is honored as a UNESCO World Heritage, along with Wismar in Mecklenburg.
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10Old Town of Torun
Torun is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population was 203,148 as of June 2014. Torun is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Torun is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
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10Old Town of Vilnius
The Old Town of Vilnius, one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe, has an area of 3.59 square kilometres (887 acres). It encompasses 74 quarters, with 70 streets and lanes numbering 1487 buildings with a total floor area of 1,497,000 square meters.
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10Old Town of Warsaw
The Warsaw Old Town is the oldest part of the capital city. It is bounded by the Wybrzeze Gdanskie, along with the bank of Vistula river, Grodzka, Mostowa and Podwale Streets. It is one of the most prominent tourist attractions in Warsaw.
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10Old Town of Wismar
A unique representative of the Hanseatic League city type, with its Brick Gothic constructions and many patrician gable houses, Wismar has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2002, together with the historical core of Stralsund.
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10Old Town of Wittenberg
Wittenberg is home to numerous historical sites, as well as portraits and other paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Younger. On the doors of All Saints' Church, the Schlosskirche ("castle church", built in 1496–1506) Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses in 1517.
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9Old Town of Zamosc
Old City of Zamosc is the oldest historic district of the city of Zamosc. It is one of World Heritage Sites in Poland (added in 1992). According to UNESCO, this monument value lies in it being "an outstanding example of a Renaissance planned town of the late 16th century, which retains its original layout and fortifications and a large number of buildings.
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10Old Town, Edinburgh
The Old Town is the name popularly given to the oldest part of Scotland's capital city of Edinburgh. The area has preserved much of its medieval street plan and many Reformation-era buildings. Together with the 18th-century New Town, it forms part of a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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10Olympia (Ancient Olympia)
Olympia (Ancient Olympia). Olympia, a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times.
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10Olympic National Park
Olympic National Park is a United States national park located in the state of Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four basic regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west side temperate rainforest and the forests of the drier east side.
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10Oranienbaum
Oranienbaum is a Russian royal residence, located on the Gulf of Finland west of St. Petersburg. The Palace ensemble and the city centre are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
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9Ordesa Monte Perdido National Park
Ordesa Monte Perdido National Park situated in the Pyrenees of Huesca province, Aragon, Spain. There has been a National Park in the Ordesa Valley since 1918.
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7Oreshek Fortress
A wooden fortress named Oreshek or Orekhov was built by Grand Prince Yury of Moscow on behalf of the Novgorod Republic in 1323. It guarded the northern approaches to Novgorod and access to the Baltic Sea.
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7Orkhon Valley
Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar.
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1Orthodox church St. Paraskeva, Radruz
The church in Radruz is one of the most precious wooden churches in Poland and was erected by master carpenters who used the experience of the late Gothic carpentry.
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1Our-Lady Ter Hooyen (Beguinage), Ghent
The small beguinage O.L.V. Ter Hooyen is situated in southern area of Ghent. This beguinage was built on the 'Groene Hooie', between the 'Hooipoort' and the 'Vijfwindgatenpoort'. That is how this little beguinage got its name.
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5Padjelanta National Park
Padjelanta is a national park in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Established in 1963, it is the largest national park in Sweden with an area of 1,984 km2, and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Laponia established in 1996.
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10Palace of Catalan Music
The Palace of Catalan Music is a concert hall in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Designed in the Catalan modernista style by the architect Lluis Domenech i Montaner, it was built between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeo Catala.
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10Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament after its occupants, the Palace lies on the northern bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London.
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4Palatine Chapel, Aachen Cathedral
The Palatine Chapel is an early medieval chapel that is a remaining component of Charlemagne's Palace of Aachen in what is now Germany.
