Accessibility links

Breaking News

UNESCO Votes On Additions to World Heritage List


FILE - Photo released by website of Islamic State militants shows the Islamic State group's flag, top center, raised on the top of Palmyra castle, Syria, May 22, 2015.
FILE - Photo released by website of Islamic State militants shows the Islamic State group's flag, top center, raised on the top of Palmyra castle, Syria, May 22, 2015.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, meeting in Germany, said Saturday that it had designated seven cultural sites for addition to its World Heritage List.

Two of the sites are in Iran and one each in China, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia and France.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) bestows the designation to recognize global significance and to help in preservation.

The 39th session of the committee, chaired by German Minister of State Maria Böhmer, will vote in Bonn on 31 other nominations Sunday.

In the United States, the San Antonio Missions in Texas — San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, Nuestra Señora de La Purisima Conception de Acuña, San Francisco de La Espada, San Antonio de Valero (“The Alamo”) and San Juan Capistrano — are recommended for inscription this year on the World Heritage List.

The five missions of the so-called Spanish frontier were established by Catholic religious orders in the 17th and 18th centuries to spread Christianity among the locals.

They would be the first World Heritage sites in the state of Texas and the 22nd designation in the United States.

UNESCO has approved the inscription on the World Heritage List of more than 1,000 sites in more than 160 countries worldwide, from the Taj Mahal to Australia's Great Barrier Reef to Stonehenge in England.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG