Focus on Arts and Ecology

The 15-century walled city of Ahmadabad lies on the eastern bank of the Sabarmati river in India’s State of Gujarat. The Bhadra citadel, mosques, tombs, and Hindu and Jain temples are celebrated as architectural heritage from the sultanate period.

Travel tip: Stop by Jama Masjid (above), considered one of the most beautiful mosques in Ahmadabad and renowned for its intricately carved sandstone.

On the lush volcanic island of Ra’iatea in the center of the Polynesian Triangle, forested valley, lagoon, and coral reef make up the property of Taputapuātea. In addition to its stunning natural features, the marae complex—a political, ceremonial and funerary center—is evidence of traditional Polynesian worship.

Travel tip: Air Tahiti offers 40-minute flights to Ra’iatea from Papeete and Moorea, and daily 15-minute flights from Huahine and Bora Bora. The island can also be reached by ferry, but runs less frequently.

This earthen architecture city in central Iran dates from the 5th century C.E. It’s traditional hammams, mosques, synagogues, and Zoroastrian temples earned it the title of Dār al-ibada, or Home of Piety. In addition to its rich cultural heritage, the city’s use of qanats, a network of underground water tunnels, is evidence of man’s adaptability to a desert environment.

Travel tip: U.S. citizens must obtain valid visas from the Iranian Interests Section at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C., however, possession of a valid Iranian visa will not guarantee entry into the country.

Found in northwest England, these picturesque landscapes were shaped by glaciers from the Ice Age and modern agricultural systems. The combination of nature and manmade scenery in the mountains, lakes, gardens, parks, and houses throughout the area inspired early preservation efforts of this and other landscapes.

Travel tip: Finding a place to stay within England's largest national park is no struggle with hotels, campsites, log cabins, cottages, and more to choose from. Rather than booking one of the area's many attractions on site, those booked online help preserve England's largest national park.

Near the city of Xiamen, the small island of Kulangsu was a significant site of Sino-foreign exchange that forged an international community beginning in the early 20th century. This cultural fusion is evidenced by the island’s swath of architectural styles, including the Traditional Southern Fujian Style, Western Classical Revival Style, and Veranda Colonial Style. This melding of styles eventually influenced a new architectural movement known as the Amoy Deco Style.

Travel tip: Kulangsu is a pedestrian-only island, and can be reached via a short ferry ride from downtown Xiamen.

The Gelati Monastery and complex in central Georgia is one of the country's most treasured religious and cultural landmarks. Construction began in 1106, and the site is renowned for its collection of twelfth- to nineteenth-century mosaics, wall paintings, enamels, and metalwork.

Travel tip: Visit during the Sunday morning service to be treated to beautiful Georgian chants.

Sambor Prei Kuk, “the temple in the richness of the forest”, served as the capital of the Chenla Empire from the late 6th and early 7th centuries C.E. Octagonal temples, decorative sandstone, pediments, and colonnades are examples of pre-Angkor decorative styles that laid the foundation for Khmer art and architecture during the Angkor period.

Travel tip: Tour operators offer day tours to Sambor Prei Kuk from the major tourist hubs of Siem Reap (two to three hours, one-way) and Phnom Penh (three to four hours, one-way).

Named after its patron goddess Aphrodite, this ancient city is a well-preserved history of both Greek and Roman civilizations in Turkey from the second century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E. With quality marble quarries only a few kilometers away and a thriving, local art school, Aphrodisias developed a tradition of marble sculpture famous throughout the region, making it a center of both art and culture.

Travel tip: As public transportation to this remote site in southwest Turkey is limited, visit Aphrodisias by car or with a tour operator from nearby Izmir (two to three hours, one-way).

This property hosts 15 forms of defense in three countries across more than 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) between northern Italy and the eastern Adriatic Coast. The protected area includes fortified cities, fortresses, forts, and defense systems that exemplify the historical military culture of the region from land to sea.

In southern Greenland, the verdant region of Kujataa represents the earliest introduction of farming to the Arctic. Norse hunters-gatherers and Inuit hunters cultivated a landscape based on farming, grazing, and marine mammal hunting. Evidence of Eskimo and Greenlandic culture can be found along the coast, including remnants of turf houses, stone meat caches, hunting beds, and graves.

Travel tip: Visit Greenland during the summer months to experience the midnight sun.

Cropping up from a few isolated spots in the Alps, Carpathians, and Pyrenees, the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany now stretch across more than 12 countries. The incredible forests in continental Europe show this special tree’s resilience and tolerance across different climates and other conditions.

Travel Tip: If short on time, head from Berlin to spend a day in Grumsin Forest in Brandenburg’s Schorfheide-Chorin biosphere reserve for easy hikes and lakes, bogs, and ponds between the towering trees.

While the historic center of Strasbourg was initially inscribed in 1988, the Neustadt, or new town, was added to the property in 2017. The urban layout, inspired by the Haussmannian model and Germanic architectural styles, is specific to Strasbourg.

Travel tip: Cathédrale Notre-Dame, located in the historic center, is one of the most impressive Gothic churches in Europe.

Shared between Mongolia and the Russian Federation, the Daurian Steppe region is home to a diversity of species and ecosystems fostered by its unique climate. Grassland, forest, lakes, and wetlands host rare species of fauna, including the White-Naped crane, Great bustard, and millions of vulnerable migratory birds.

Travel tip: The Mongolian Daurian Landscape is a popular birding destination, where several endangered species inscribed on the IUCN Red List have been spotted.

Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, holds many well-preserved modernist buildings from the time when it was ruled by Italy (1889-1941). More than 400 outstanding examples survive, even through a decades-long conflict with Ethiopia. From the cantilevered wings of the Fiat Tagliero service station, inspired by a soaring airplane, to the lavish Impero cinema, the city is full of daring buildings that apply Italian futurist motifs to an African context—in a way Italian architects might not have tried at home.

Travel Tip: The country's culture is celebrated every summer at the annual Festival of Eritrea, with dance performances, artwork, and replicas of traditional villages. Travel outside Asmara is restricted, even for diplomats.

Protecting some of the last sections of near-untouched Patagonian forest, this property in the Andes is home to many native and threatened species of flora and fauna. Shaped by glaciations over the years, the region's crystal-clear lakes, moraines, and glacial cirques are just three of the various ecosystems found throughout the park.

Travel tip: Aerolineas Argentinas offers two-and-a-half-hour flights to Esquel, the park's gateway city, once a day.

In the Judean hills south of Jerusalem, West Bank city of Hebron is especially contentious territory because both Jews and Muslims revere the same site, called the Tomb of the Patriarchs by Jews, and the Ibrahimi Mosque by Muslims. Clashes frequently erupt between the two hundred thousand Palestinians, and the several hundred Jewish settlers living in heavily guarded enclaves. The old town was build at the crossroads of trade routes to limestone between 1250 and 1517.

Travel tip: Try a locally-guided tour with Green Olive Tours, and don’t forget a passport to easily cross checkpoints between Jewish and Arab sides of the segregated city.

The largest and highest plateau in the world, Qinghai Hoh Xil's geography and year-round sub-zero temperatures have created a unique ecosystem of plant species and herbivorous mammals native to the area. This uninhabited Chinese property also protects the entire migratory route of the Tibetan antelope, one of the flagship (and endemic endangered) species found there.

Travel tip: The highest railroad in the world, the Tibet Railway, travels from Xining, China, up to Lhasa in Tibet, where this site is passed during the journey.

Angola's Mbanza Kongo demonstrates, more than anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, the deep changes caused by the introduction of Christianity and the arrival of the Portuguese into Central Africa. The political and spiritual capital of the Kingdom of Kongo for centuries, the town of Mbanza Kongo grew around the royal residence, the customary court, and the royal funeral places. The Portuguese arrived in the 15th century and built incredible stone buildings constructed in the European methods using local materials.

Travel Tip: Try to learn some basic phrases in Portuguese before arriving.

Situated between the Japanese archipelago and Korean peninsula, this sacred Japanese island chronicles the progression of traditional worship rituals from the 4th to the 9th centuries C.E. The archaeological sites and shrines peppered across the island were an appeal to the gods to protect the surrounding waters, which served as significant trade routes in the region.

Travel tip: Okinoshima is not open to the public. Visitors who wish to pay homage to the sacred island are encouraged to visit Okitsu-miya Yohaisho and observe Okinoshima from afar.

This transnational extension of Sudano-Sahelian savannah covers regions of Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The collection of grasslands, shrub lands, wooded savannah, and gallery forests are home to significant terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the West African savannah belt, including threatened wildlife species. It hosts the largest population of elephants in West Africa, cheetahs, leopards, and the only viable population of lions in the region.

Travel tip: Pendjari National Park in Benin is one of West Africa's best wildlife viewing spots, where visitors can view lions, leopards, elephants, baboons and hippos. The best viewing time is near the end of dry season, which lasts from November to February.

Between 1919 and 1933, the Bauhaus movement drastically overturned the widely accepted norms of architecture that endured since the Renaissance. The aesthetic, design, and construction of Bauhaus buildings in Weimar, Dessau, and Bernau, Germany, laid the foundations for a modernist movement that made a wide-scale impact on 20th-century architecture.

Travel Tip: Birthplace of Bauhaus Dessau-Rosslau is an easy day trip from Berlin, but spend the night to fully appreciate the greatest concentration of structures from the movement’s most creative period: 1925 to 1932.

On the border between Botswana and Namibia lies a large desert landscape inhabited by the previously nomadic ǂKhomani San people—one of the last indigenous communities in the region. This site depicts the group's cultural lifestyle and their ability to adapt to the harsh climate of southern Africa over thousands of years.

Travel tip: Although Botswana doesn't require U.S. citizens to obtain a tourist visa, Namibia grants them visas upon arrival.

Located in southern Poland, the site hides underground and speaks to the mining-rich region and history of innovation. The 19th-century steam water pumping station makes use of undesirable water from the mines to supply towns and industry. Tarnowskie Góry contributed significantly to the global production of lead and zinc.

Travel tip: Tourists can peruses an interactive museum on site to learn how mining works before heading underground.

At the crossroads of the Silk Road and Volga route, Tsar Ivan the Terrible founded Sviyazhsk in 1551 as a fortress, to become the first Orthodox city in the middle reaches of the Volga River. The stone Assumption Cathedral was built ten years later. The cathedral’s stunning frescoes are among the rarest examples of Eastern Orthodox mural paintings, including the world’s only fresco of horse-headed St. Christopher.

Travel tip: An easy day trip, a ferry transports tourists from Kazan River Port right to Sviyazhsk in about two hours per way, but only operates in the summer months.

From 1811, nearly a million enslaved Africans arrived in South America through the old stone wharf in Rio de Janeiro—a vestige of the largest entry point for slaves in Brazil. The site is composed of several archaeological layers, including floor pavings from the original wharf, and considered and “a testimony to one of the most brutal episodes in the history of Humankind.”

Travel tip: The My Porto Maravilha exhibit center offers guided tours of the port region, including the Valongo Wharf.

Home to some of the oldest figurative art in the world, the six caves in southern Germany feature items made by humans at the time of their first arrival in Europe 43,000 years ago. The carved figurines, musical instruments, and personal adornments created in the Ice Age help provide an origin story of modern art.

Travel tip: The best time to visit the caves is during summer as some of the caves are closed or have a shortened schedule in the winter.