NEW UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES ANNOUNCED

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has added 33 new places to its list of World Heritage Sites.

Due to the pandemic, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee couldn't meet last year, so this year they voted on nominations from both 2020 and 2021.

According to CNN, destinations have to meet one of several criteria to make the list. Perhaps they're a "unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation which is living or which has disappeared." Or maybe they contain "superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance."

There are perks to having a UNESCO World Heritage Site in your country. The country receives financial assistance and expert advice from UNESCO towards preserving the site. It also usually attracts tourists to the country.

The 2020 additions include the Cordouan Lighthouse in France; Pradua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles in Italy; the Rosia Montana Mining Landscape in Romania; and Stitio Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil.

Additions that have been added to the list for 2021 include As-Salt: The Place of Tolerance and Urban Hospitality in Jordan; the works of Joze Plecnik in Ljubiljana; Human Centred Urban Design in Slovenia; the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales; and Ivindo National Park in Gabon.

Image credit: Daily Sabah