Many of our planet’s most iconic monuments—the pyramids of Egypt, the Roman Colosseum, Stonehenge, and the giant heads of the Easter Islands—are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
There are about 1,200 of them in the world, places and things that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization considers to be of cultural, herbal or ancient importance and of outstanding value to humanity.
Sites are located in more than 168 countries and on all continents. Italy leads the list with 59 nominations, followed by China, France, Germany, Spain and India.
And while many Americans may not realize it, the United States is no slouch when it comes to World Heritage sites.
As of 2024, the United States has 25 spots in 21 other states and Puerto Rico. They are divided into 4 main categories: nature, history, Native Americans, and a very architectural category that includes the paintings of a single individual.
How many of them have you visited?
Bison and geysers: two of the features that helped Yellowstone National Park be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Photo via George Frey/Getty Images)
From Wrangell-St Elias in Alaska to the Everglades in Florida, from the volcanoes of Hawaii to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, 14 American parks are World Heritage Sites.
Shortly after the program was introduced in the 1970s, Yellowstone and Mesa Verde were among the first places in the world to earn this distinction.
UNESCO praised Yellowstone for “showcasing geological phenomena and processes,” as well as a “unique manifestation of geothermal forces, herbal beauty, and wild ecosystems where rare and endangered species thrive. “
Although it is also a place of remarkable herbal beauty, Mesa Verde selected for its remarkable archaeological sites that “provide eloquent testimony to the ancient cultural traditions of Native American tribes. They constitute a graphic link between the afterlife and provide lifestyles of the peoples. “of the American Southwest.
Several national parks are on UNESCO’s provisional list as World Heritage Sites: Big Bend in Texas, White Sands in New Mexico, and the Petrified Forest in Arizona.
Thomas Jefferson designed the sublime rotunda and pavilions lining The Lawn on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. (Photo by Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service Getty Images)
Several of the country’s most iconic structures are World Heritage sites, including Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution were debated, drafted, and signed on both sides of the American Revolution.
France marked a century of American independence (and one of the inspirations for its own revolution) by donating to New York City a colossal steel sculpture titled Liberty Enlightening the World. More commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, the green goddess listed as a World Heritage Site in 1984.
Thomas Jefferson’s sublime Monticello House and the “Academic Villa” he designed for the nearby University of Virginia are a combined heritage site that UNESCO praises for “the originality of its plans and designs and for the refinement of its proportions and decoration” and the way in which its architecture invokes “freedom, nobility, self-determination, and prosperity. “
Reflecting several centuries of Spanish colonial rule in the American Southwest, San Antonio’s five missions and a former hacienda south of Texas City are clustered into another site focused on history. The World Heritage Site of La Fortaleza and Old San Juan in Puerto Rico was also established through Spanish settlers.
The Cliff Palace is one of the largest and most impressive of the more than six hundred archaeological sites in Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park. (Photo via Robert Alexander/File Photos/Getty Images)
Native American relics make up a quarter of the country’s UNESCO sites.
The dwellings on the cliffs of Mesa Verde were probably the first to achieve World Heritage status, although others are equally impressive in terms of architecture and cultural significance.
By far the most well-known is Taos Pueblo, which has been frequently occupied for more than 500 years and is still home to about 150 full-time residents.
Further west, in New Mexico, are ruins related to the Chaco culture that flourished in the region between 850 and 1250 A. D.
On the other hand, the Hopewell Mounds in Ohio, the semicircular earthworks of Poverty Point in Louisiana, and the Great Pyramid of Cahokia near St. Louis. Louis were created through complex and highly complicated Native American cultures that thrived in the Mississippi Basin for centuries before. the arrival of the first Europeans.
The famous Fallingwater House in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, is Frank Lloyd Wright’s definitive architectural masterpiece (Photo by Richard A. Cooke/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
It is rare for a single person to be blamed for the creation of an entire World Heritage site. But when that user is the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the selection is obvious.
Eight of his masterpieces in six states are committed to Frank Lloyd Wright’s 20th-century architecture, which spans the country from California to New York.
Several are well-known, such as the Guggenheim Museum whirlpool in Manhattan, the Fallingwater House in Pennsylvania, and the monumental Taliesin West in Arizona, where Wright spent more than 20 winters.
Others are darker, but equally impressive: the Mayan Revival-style Hollyhock House in Los Angeles and the still-sublime brick-and-wood design of Herbert and Katherine Jacobs’ first home in Wisconsin.
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