What is a UNESCO World Heritage Site? And why should you care?

Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape- UNESCO Site in Austria

You may have heard that a place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But what does that even mean?

In short, it means that the place is really special and worthy of designation as such.

But there’s far more to it than that. Let’s chat about it shall we?

Grand Canyon National Park — World Heritage Site in Arizona, USA

What is a UNESCO World Heritage site?

I’ll start with a little history…

Back in 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted an international treaty called the World Heritage Convention.

This was an effort to encourage the nations of the world to come together to identify (and commit to protect) their most precious sites of natural and cultural importance. Then, from this treaty, the World Heritage List was formed.

World Heritage sign in Bath, England

Sites are put on the World Heritage list because something about them is valuable to the people of the world — as in all of…