World Heritage Sites: A Guide to the Most Remarkable Landmarks and Destinations

The World Heritage Sites are legally maintained and protected by UNESCO under an international agreement by the United Nations. These sites are selected for having a unique cultural, historical, scientific and any other type of importance. Currently, there are a total of 1154 officially recognized and protected world heritage sites by UNESCO including 897 cultural sites, 218 natural sites and 39 mixed properties located across 167 countries. This article explores some of the most remarkable World Heritage Sites, including Machu Picchu, Pyramid of Giza, Angkor Wat, Stonehenge, and Cappadocia.

WORLD HERITAGE SITES

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

MAIN BODY
The World Heritage Sites are the special landmarks, areas and destinations that are
protected by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These sites are legally maintained and
protected by UNESCO under an international agreement by the United Nations (Liuzza, 2021).
The World Heritage Sites are selected by UNESCO for having a unique cultural, historical,
scientific and any other type of importance. These sites are considered to be of outstanding value
and once in a lifetime creativity of humans due to their extraordinary quality and significance
(De Simone, Canale and Di Maio, 2019). These sites are identified on the basis of their
incomparable landmark and geographical locations. The historical sites are recognized as
uncopiable in the present time and force the archaeologists to wonder how they would have been
made without the availability of technology. Apart from man made object, some special natural
places such as deserts, lakes, islands, forests etc. are also included in the list of World Heritage
Sites as the places with great natural beauty and features that makes the planet wonderful
(Migoń, 2018). The historical sites such as monuments, buildings, forts, and cities are the
remarkable achievements of humanity and serves as a proof of the great intelligence of humans.
Currently there are a total of 1154 officially recognized and protected world heritage sites
by UNESCO including 897 cultural sites, 218 natural sites and 39 mixed properties located
across 167 countries with Italy having the most number of World Heritage Sites, that is, 58
(Hosseini, Stefaniec and Hosseini, 2021). The World heritage sites are divided into three types-
cultural heritage, natural heritages and mixed heritages. The cultural heritages include the
monuments, buildings, ancient ruins, cultural scenarios and other creations of humans that have
outstanding value. These are basically ancient structures and remains that signifies an excellent
work of art and wonderful display of workmanship (El Azazy, 2022). These sites make us
wonder about how they would be structured and processed without technological and machinery
support and many of them are considered impossible to be able to recreated even with the help of
modern tech and knowledge. Those efforts and intelligence are far to match in the present
context and hence, these sites have a universal value. The natural heritages are the geographical
landmarks, ecosystems and habitats of endangered species that have a high universal value.
These are the naturally present areas around the world such as deserts, lakes, forests flora &
fauna etc. these natural areas have some unique features that set them apart from other places

around the world and possess specific environmental conditions. The mixed heritage sites
recognized by the UNESCO are the ones that have the values of both cultural and natural sites.
These sites contain the qualities of both the cultural and natural heritages and has a combined
significance. The mixed heritages are often modified or recreated into a better and useful
versions (Stoleriu and et.al., 2019).
The Machu Picchu, that is located in Peru is one of the most popular tourist destination in
the world. It is due to its stunning location and architecture that attracts tourists from all around
the world. It is built in the mountainous terrain high above the Urubamba river in Lush and is
considered as one of the best archaeological sites in the world (Diestro Mandros, Garcia
Mercado and Bayona-Oré, 2020, October). It is an ancient city of Incas cascades down steep
walls on each side of the mountain with joined roofed steps that disappear over cliff edges into
the valley below. These are the astounding ruins of the historical creation of humanity that are
restored and well maintained under UNESCO's convention and the government of Peru. It
indicates the level and intelligence of architecture of the 15th and 16th century and the structures
of the city and the lifestyle of the people during that time. Many tourists visit Peru for a single
purpose of visiting Machu Pichu and this journey might be very adventurous as well. The tourists
may opt to have a multi days hike and camping trip in the mountains of Incas and closely feel the
wonderful and incredible vibes of the place and have a close look of the architecture from bottom
to top along with the unforgettable experience in the marvelous surrounding of the Machu Pichu
(Pinedo, 2018).
The Pyramid of Giza is one of the most iconic sites of the world located near Cairo,
Egypt. Located in the desert areas of Egypt, these are the unreal heritage sites in the barren land.
These pyramids are reportedly constructed about 2,600 years ago when the Colosseum in Rome
was still under process. These big giant structures or monuments are the oldest of the seven
wonders of the world. The Pyramids were assembled as graves for the Pharaoh of Egypt and the
largest of these pyramids was being built around the mid 2560 BC (AbdelMaksoud and Emam,
2019). The Camel ride around these pyramids and the inner tunnels in the Pyramid of Chephren
and the Pyramid of Cheops the top activities to do for the tourists in Egypt. These Pyramids are
always under discussion as it is still a mystery about how these complex structures would have
been created and designed. Many experts considered it impossible for the humans to make these
calculations and design and them without technology as it would still be very challenging for

today's technology to construct these monuments. This mysterious assumptions are also the
reason a lot of tourists gets attracted and visit this heritage sites.
The Angkor Wat of Combodia is one of the most preserved and protected heritage site by
UNESCO located in the forest areas near the Siem Reap city of Combodia. It is the world's
largest religious monument but that is not the only reason it has a place in the list. This site
comprises of interesting mixture of excavated and excavated temples of different shape and size.
It was built in the 12th century by the Khmers and it is an absolute example of sensational
architecture (Suy, Chhay and Choun, 2018.). There are huge carved faces on the walls with tiny
noticeable art imprinted all around the walls. There are multiple doorways, passageways, stairs
and steep stairs for an adventurous exploration. It is so old that various parts of the temples are
covered by trees and roots. During the 15th century, The Angkor Wat was the largest city in the
world (Brumann, 2021). It is so huge that it takes around a two to three days of time to explore
the entire location and experience its art and unique environment.
The Stonehenge, England is one of the most popular tourist destination of the world.
These stone structures belongs the Bronze Age. This outstanding pre historic monument is the
United Kingdom's most visited destinations and is considered as one of the unique heritage sites
that attracts a big number of tourists from all around the globe. The monument is said to be
constructed between the 3000- 1500 BC with no record of how did it originated and who built it
and for what purpose (Darvill, 2019). Similar to the Pyramids of Egypt, these monuments also
speculations and myths about their existence related to the religious and astronomical magnitude.
These are the ring of standing stones that are hold on to pillars of stones which is quite
mysterious to understand that how they were carried in that formation (Molaei and Hunter,
2020). They also have a mystical behaviour as just about the summer and winter solstices, during
the sunrise and sunset, the sun rays are aligned with the stones.
Cappadocia of Turkey is one of the most bizarre World Heritage Sites. About three to
four years ago continuous volcanic eruptions completely trembled the central Anatolian area and
resulted in the formation of these honeycombed like strictures in the plateaus of central Anatolia
and are also known as Cappadocia fairies or Cotton Castles (Zaman and Aktan, 2021). These
landscapes are a result of volcanic erosion the ashes that solidified into thick rocks and kept on
eroding through wing and water. This long process of millions of years has given us an iconic
heritage to witness these fairy honeycomb chimneys that we see today. These landscapes expand

over 5,000 kilometres on an altitude of over 1,000 meters that is itself a noticeable geographical
location (Scoon, 2021). The people during the Bronze age build unusual cave homes around this
place, carved out of soft rocks. It is known that these caves were later uses by Christians running
away from religious ill-treatment. The best part of this sight is the hot air balloon trip over these
crazy structures and caves for the views and photos is a high demanded activity of tourists.
The World Heritage sites are preserved by the International World Heritage Program
monitored by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to confiture the prosperity of these sites
(Levin and et.al., 2019.). Otherwise, these heritages may be subjected with the risk of threat from
the human disturbances and hence, many of them are partly or completely restricted and
monitored with the help of local administrative bodies.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Hosseini, K., Stefaniec, A. and Hosseini, S.P., 2021. World Heritage Sites in developing
countries: Assessing impacts and handling complexities toward sustainable tourism. Journal of
Destination Marketing & Management, 20. p.100616.
Levin, N. and et.al., 2019. World Heritage in danger: Big data and remote sensing can help
protect sites in conflict zones. Global environmental change, 55. pp.97-104.
De Simone, E., Canale, R.R. and Di Maio, A., 2019. Do UNESCO World Heritage Sites
influence international tourist arrivals? Evidence from Italian provincial data. Social Indicators
Research, 146(1). pp.345-359.
Migoń, P., 2018. Geoheritage and world heritage sites. In Geoheritage (pp. 237-249). Elsevier.
Diestro Mandros, J., Garcia Mercado, R. and Bayona-Oré, S., 2020, October. Virtual Reality and
Tourism: Visiting Machu Picchu. In International Conference on Software Process
Improvement (pp. 269-279). Springer, Cham.
Pinedo, J.R.F., 2018. Tourism management and sustainable development in world heritage sites.
The case of Machu Picchu (Cuzco-Peru). International Journal of Scientific Management and
Tourism, 4(2). pp.265-283.
AbdelMaksoud, K.M. and Emam, M.A., 2019. Hidden geology in ancient
Egypt. Geoheritage, 11(3). pp.897-907.
El Azazy, S.A., 2022. Tourism Development of the Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Sites
within the National Project for Urban Sustainable Development in Egypt. International Journal
of Humanities and Education Development (IJHED), 4(2). pp.53-68.
Suy, R., Chhay, L. and Choun, C., 2018. Protection and management policy on angkor wat
temple in Cambodia: An overview. Asian Themes in Social Sciences Research, 1(1).pp.10-13.
Brumann, C., 2021. Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage by Michael Falser. Journal
of Colonialism and Colonial History, 22(1).
Molaei, P. and Hunter, W.C., 2020. A typology of Stonehenge online images: World Heritage
Sites and their representations for tourism. 관관관관관관, 34(4). pp.35-53.
Darvill, T., 2019. Monuments for life: building Human Henge at Stonehenge and
Avebury. Historic Landscapes and Mental Well-being, p.65.

Zaman, U. and Aktan, M., 2021. Examining residents’ cultural intelligence, place image and
foreign tourist attractiveness: A mediated-moderation model of support for tourism development
in Cappadocia (Turkey). Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 46. pp.393-404.
Scoon, R.N., 2021. Cappadocia, Central Turkey. In The Geotraveller (pp. 313-326). Springer,
Cham.
Liuzza, C., 2021. The making and UN-making of consensus: Institutional inertia in the UNESCO
World Heritage Committee. International Journal of Cultural Property, 28(2). pp.261-284.
Stoleriu and et.al., 2019. Analyses of visitors’ experiences in a natural world heritage site based
on TripAdvisor reviews. Visitor Studies, 22(2). pp.192-212.

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