
Orango Nationwide Park on the Bijagós Archipelago off of the coast of Guinea-Bissau is a newly designated World Heritage Website.
Hellio & van Ingen/IBAP/UNESCO Nomination File
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Hellio & van Ingen/IBAP/UNESCO Nomination File
Twenty-six websites have been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, designating their cultural and pure significance.
Places this year embrace a sacred mountain in Malawi; petroglyphs in South Korea; stays of a port and forts from seventeenth century Port Royal, Jamaica; a king’s palaces in Germany; and a river canyon in Brazil famous for its biodiversity.
The World Heritage Checklist, now numbering 1,248 locations, consists of “cultural and pure properties of excellent common worth.” Websites have been added virtually yearly since 1978. UNESCO is a United Nations company targeted on tradition, science and schooling.
Representatives of 21 international locations on the World Heritage Committee met this month in Paris to finalize which places so as to add to the record. International locations with World Heritage websites must commit to preserving them; international locations with designated websites may additionally obtain funding to assist with that conservation.
Here is a number of among the places added this yr:
Bavarian palaces

Neuschwanstein Fort is a part of the 4 palace complexes included within the World Heritage Website record.
J. Beck/UNESCO Nomination File
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J. Beck/UNESCO Nomination File
King Ludwig II of Bavaria had these grand palaces constructed between 1864 and 1886 in what’s now Germany, according to UNESCO. He ascended to the throne at age 18 and has been known as the “Mad King,” due to his long rants, hallucinations and paranoia. The 4 palace complexes listed are known as Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee. The palaces are actually a tourist attraction, “information in stone of the best fantasy world which the king constructed as a refuge from actuality,” in response to a biography on a website for the palaces.
Imperial tombs in China

An aerial view of Mausoleum No. 4, a part of the imperial tombs of the Xixia Dynasty.
Administrative Workplace of Xixia Tomb Space of Yinchuan Metropolis/UNESCO Nomination File
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Administrative Workplace of Xixia Tomb Space of Yinchuan Metropolis/UNESCO Nomination File
The necropolis is situated in north-central China’s Ningxia area. Individuals from the Xixia Dynasty are buried among the many “9 imperial mausoleums, 271 subordinate tombs, a northern architectural complicated, and 32 flood management buildings,” as UNESCO describes. The dynasty lasted from 1038 to 1227, when it was destroyed by Genghis Khan’s Mongol army.
China’s government said the location exhibits “the essential position of Xixia as a key distribution middle on the Silk Roads throughout the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.” It added that the placement is “the most important, highest-ranked, and most intact archaeological web site from the Xixia interval that has survived to the current day.”
Stays of seventeenth century Port Royal, Jamaica

Fort Charles museum in Port Royal, pictured in 2012. The fort was constructed within the 1600s.
Mladen Antonov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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Mladen Antonov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Port Royal, in southeastern Jamaica, was a significant English port metropolis within the seventeenth century. According to UNESCO, it was a middle of transatlantic commerce, which included enslaved Africans. It was additionally a hub for pirates. A 1692 earthquake pushed much of the town underwater.
Ecosystems of the Bijagós Islands

Wildlife in Orango Nationwide Park on the Bijagós Archipelago.
Enrique López-Tapia de Inés/IBAP/UNESCO Nomination File
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