News: UNESCO Adds 21 New Sites

We talk a lot on here about places that UNESCO has named World Heritage sites; cities like Petra, Bruges and Colmar. On Monday, the committee that decides which sites are to receive the special designation completed their meeting, adding 21 new sites to the list of already 890 locations. To be considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, locations must first meet a certain criteria that includes: representing a masterpiece of human creative genius; exhibiting an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world; to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared.
 
The sites that have been added are:

1. Papahānaumokuākea (United States of America)
2. Australian Convict Sites (Australia)
3. São Francisco Square in the Town of São Cristovão (Brazil)
4. Historic Monuments of Dengfeng, in the “Centre of Heaven and Earth” (China)
5. Episcopal City of Albi (France)
6. Jantar Mantar (India)
7. Sheikh Safi al-Din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil (Islamic Republic of Iran)
8. Tabriz Historical Bazaar Complex (Islamic Republic of Iran)
9. Bikini Atoll, Nuclear Test Site (Marshall Islands)
10. Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Mexico)
11. Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in the Central Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico)
12. Seventeenth-century Canal Ring Area inside the Singelgracht, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
13. Historic Villages of Korea: Hahoe and Yangdong (Republic of Korea)
14. At Turaif District in ad-Dir’iyah (Saudi Arabia)
15. Proto-Urban site of Sarazm (Tajikistan)
16. Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi (Viet Nam)
17. China Danxia (China)
18. Pitons, Cirques and Remparts of Reunion Island (France)
19. Phoenix Islands Protected Area (Kiribati)
20. Putorana Plateau (Russian Federation)
21. Central Highlands of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka)