Danube Limes added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List closing this year’s inscriptions
The World Heritage Committee today inscribed the transnational property of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Danube Limes (Western Segment) on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Danube Limes (Western Segment) features components in Austria, Germany, and Slovakia
It covers almost 600km of the whole Roman Empire’s Danube frontier. The property formed part of the much large frontier of the Roman Empire that encircled the Mediterranean Sea. The Danube Limes (Western Segment) reflects the specificities of this part of the Roman Frontier through the selection of sites that represent key elements from road, legionary fortresses and their associated settlements to small forts and temporary camps, and the way these structures relate to local topography.
During its extended 44th session, held online and chaired by China from Fuzhou, the World Heritage Committee examined nominations submitted in 2020, when the session had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2021.
A total of 34 properties were inscribed during the current session and three properties were extended. The new properties include 29 cultural and five natural sites.
Also during the current session, the World Heritage Committee recognized sufficient improvements in in the state of conservation of the World Heritage site of Salonga National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo), to warrant its removal from the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The site of Roșia Montană Mining Landscape (Romania) was inscribed simultaneously on the World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger pending the removal of threats to its integrity posed by possible mining activities.
The World Heritage Committee also took the exceptional and rare decision to delete Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (UK) from the World Heritage List due to the irreversible loss of the attributes for which it had been inscribed.
Newly inscribed cultural sites, 2020 nominations:
The Great Spa Towns of Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom)
Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Danube Limes (Western Segment) (Austria, Germany, Slovakia)
Colonies of Benevolence (Belgium, Netherlands)
Sítio Roberto Burle Marx (Brazil)
Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China (China)
Cordouan Lighthouse (France)
Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt (Germany)
Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple, Telangana (India)
Trans-Iranian Railway, Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)
Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles (Italy)
Dutch Water Defence Lines, inscribed as an extension to the World Heritage site of Defence Line of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex (Peru)
Roșia Montană Mining Landscape (Romania)
Ḥimā Cultural Area (Saudi Arabia)
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences (Spain)
Arslantepe Mound (Turkey)
The work of engineer Eladio Dieste: Church of Atlántida (Uruguay)
Newly inscribed natural sites, 2020 nominations:
Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands (Georgia)
Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, Northern part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island (Japan)
Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats (Republic of Korea)
Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (Thailand)
Newly inscribed cultural sites, 2021 nominations:
Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region (Chile)
Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire (Côte d’Ivoire)
Nice, Winter Resort Town of the Riviera (France)
ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz (Germany)
Frontiers of the Roman Empire – The Lower German Limes, (Germany, Netherlands)
Dholavira: a Harappan City (India)
Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat (Iran, Islamic Republic of)
The Porticoes of Bologna (Italy)
Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan (Japan)
As-Salt – The Place of Tolerance and Urban Hospitality (Jordan)
The Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption of Tlaxcala was inscribed as an extension of the World Heritage property of Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl (Mexico)
Petroglyphs of Lake Onega and the White Sea (Russian Federation)
The works of Jože Plečnik in Ljubljana – Human Centred Urban Design (Slovenia)
The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales (UK)
Inscribed natural property and extension, 2021 nominations:
Ivindo National Park (Gabon)
Extension to Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe (in Bosnia Herzegovina, Czechia, France, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland)
The current session’s inscriptions bring the total number of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage to 1154.
The 45th session of the World Heritage Committee will take place in Kazan (Russian Federation) from 19 to 30 June 2022, under the chair of Alexander Kuznetsov.