French City Of Nice Wins UNESCO World Heritage Status

Umer Jamshaid Published July 27, 2021 | 10:02 PM

The UN's cultural organisation said on Tuesday that it had added Nice to its world heritage list thanks to the French Mediterranean city's centuries-old role as winter residence for mostly wealthy foreigners

Nice, France, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jul, 2021 ) :The UN's cultural organisation said on Tuesday that it had added Nice to its world heritage list thanks to the French Mediterranean city's centuries-old role as winter residence for mostly wealthy foreigners.

Following the decision by its World Heritage Committee, UNESCO in a statement on Twitter called Nice, famous for its mild climate, the "Winter resort town of the Riviera".

The city joins France's more than 40 world heritage sites including the banks of the river Seine in Paris, the Amiens cathedral, the Mont Saint Michel and stretches of the Loire valley.

UNESCO said that Nice adapted its urban planning as early as two centuries ago to make itself attractive to foreigners seeking warmer climes.

Their cultural influences and "desire to make the most of the climatic conditions and scenery of the place, shaped the urban planning and eclectic architectural styles of those areas", it said.

With close to one million inhabitants, greater Nice is the second-biggest city on the French Mediterranean coast after Marseille, and the fifth-biggest in France.

It is a tourist hotspot with several million visitors per year, and its airport is one of the country's busiest.

Nicknamed "Nice the Beautiful", the city attracted European aristocracy from the 18th century, starting with British royalty who had the seafront "Promenade des Anglais" ("Promenade of the English") named after them.

Painters including Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse also stayed there, as did writers Anton Chekhov and Friedrich Nietzsche.

"The history of Nice, which is at the same time deeply rooted and open, Mediterranean and Alpine, European and cosmopolitan, has produced an architecture and a landscape that are unique, a model for many other cities in the world," Nice's mayor Christian Estrosi said.