UNESCO Inscribes Five New Sites On World Heritage List

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published July 06, 2019 | 11:57 AM

Five new landmarks located in Iraq, France and three other locations have been added to the list of World Heritage Sites, UNESCO said in a statement on Friday

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2019) Five new landmarks located in Iraq, France and three other locations have been added to the list of World Heritage Sites, UNESCO said in a statement on Friday.

"The World Heritage Committee inscribed five new sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List this afternoon. Among them are two natural sites, one in France and one in Iceland, a mixed, i.e. natural and cultural, site in Brazil and two cultural sites in Burkina Faso and Iraq," the release said.

The natural sites, the release noted, include the French Southern Lands and Seas, rare land masses in the southern Indian Ocean with one of the largest populations of birds and marine mammals in the world, as well as Icelandic Vatnajokull National Park with 10 volcanoes, eight of which are subglacial.

The new cultural sites inscribed by UNESCO are the Ancient Ferrous Metallurgy Sites of Burkina Faso representing the oldest evidence of the development of iron production and the ruins of the city of Babylon in Iraq, dating back to between 626 and 539 BCE.

Brazil's coastal town of Paraty and the island of Ilha Grande with their notable diversity of species, such as the jaguar, the white-lipped peccary and the woolly spider monkey, and tropical forests, mountains and waterfalls are now on the newly inscribed UNESCO's mixed sites.

The release added that the Committee also decided on the extension of the transboundary natural and cultural heritage site of the Ohrid region in North Macedonia which encompasses the Albanian part of Lake Ohrid, Lin Peninsula, and a strip of land connecting the peninsula to the Macedonian border.

The 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, from June 30 to July 10. Some 35 nominations for the inscription on UNESCO's World Heritage List are set for the examination.