Nov 23rd, 2009 at 3:30PM: The Archaeological Survey of India has been struggling to control water damage to ancient Buddhist paintings in the Ajanta Caves in the state of Maharashtra. The 29 caves in this UNESCO World Heritage Site are decorated with sculptures and paintings dating back as far as the second century B.C. They depict Buddhist tales and images of the Buddha and various Bodhisattvas. The addition of new ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
WorldHeritage posts
Ancient Buddhist caves under threat
Nov 23rd, 2009 at 3:30PM: The Archaeological Survey of India has been struggling to control water damage to ancient Buddhist paintings in the Ajanta Caves in the state of Maharashtra. The 29 caves in this UNESCO World Heritage Site are decorated with sculptures and paintings dating back as far as the second century B.C. They depict Buddhist tales and images of the Buddha and various Bodhisattvas. The addition of new ...Will Varanasi and Sarnath join the World Heritage list?
Nov 20th, 2009 at 12:30PM: It's World Heritage Week from November 19-25 and countries around the globe are celebrating the priceless treasures that UNESCO, which runs the list, is helping to preserve.
But one country, India, is wondering why two of its most famous places aren't on the list. India has no shortage of World Heritage Sites, like the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, but the 3500 year-old holy city of Varanasi (Benares) ...Sacred mountain added to World Heritage List
Nov 12th, 2009 at 12:30PM: UNESCO has just made the latest addition to its World Heritage List--Suleiman Mountain in the Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan. This is Kyrgyzstan's first World Heritage Site. The mountain has been a holy spot for thousands of years. Prehistoric rock art shows it was sacred long before Islam came to the region. When the new faith took over it became a focus for Muslim pilgrims. Sick people sit ...Miners accused of destroying part of Great Wall of China
Nov 11th, 2009 at 6:00PM: It was built to keep out foreign invaders, but apparently the Great Wall of China can't protect itself from the greed of Chinese corporations.
The Hohhot Kekao Mining Co. is accused of destroying 330 ft (100 m) of China's most famous structure while prospecting for gold. The damage occurred in Inner Mongolia, where the company is prospecting. This stretch of the wall is one of the oldest, ...World Monuments Fund announces list of endangered treasures
Oct 14th, 2009 at 2:30PM:
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The World Monuments Fund, a private organization battling to preserve the world's great man-made wonders, has published a list of the most endangered monuments around the world.
It's a depressing litany of priceless places that are under threat from ...Historic St. Petersburg skyline threatened by giant skyscraper
Oct 11th, 2009 at 2:30PM:
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Residents of St. Petersburg are protesting plans to build a giant skyscraper that they say will ruin the city's historic skyline.
Russia's powerful gas company Gazprom plans to build a 400 meter (1,312 ft.) office building in the shape of a ...Avebury--more awesome than Stonehenge
Sep 25th, 2009 at 3:00PM: Everyone's heard of Stonehenge, the enigmatic stone circle on Salisbury Plain, but just seventeen miles to the north stands an even more imposing monument--Avebury. Actually it's a whole landscape of monuments. For miles around the rolling fields are dotted with the burial mounds of forgotten chieftains, and many hilltops are protected by ancient ramparts. Avebury itself is a massive stone circle ...Disgusting tourists use Uluru as a toilet
Sep 10th, 2009 at 2:30PM: The otherworldly red rock of Uluru (Ayers Rock) that rises above a flat expanse of Australia's Northern Territory has long been considered a sacred site to the native Aboriginal people. Against their wishes, over 100,000 people climb the rock, which is just over 1100 feet tall, each year. Recently, the National Parks service proposed a plan that would close Uluru to climbers.
There were many ...Hiking Hadrian's Wall--the practicalities
Sep 9th, 2009 at 3:30PM:
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If this series on the Hadrian's Wall Path has sparked your interest, why not walk it yourself? It's one of the more interesting and less challenging of the UK's fifteen National Trails. The total length of the trail is 84 miles. It is well signposted and difficult to get ...Hadrian's Wall Day Six: reaching the coast
Sep 8th, 2009 at 3:30PM:
It's the last day of my hike and I wake up excited. I have only fifteen miles to go to finish walking across the country! Sure, I've been going along one of the narrowest parts of England, but it still feels good. I'll be staying at the same hotel in Carlisle, the Brooklyn House, again tonight, and that means I can finish up my hike with only a day pack. Back in Roman times Carlisle was called ...Peace brings tourists back to Lebanon
Aug 4th, 2009 at 9:00AM: Even by the standards of the Middle East, Lebanon has had a rough time of it. A bitter civil war and periodic Israeli invasions have left much of the country in ruins, but now that order appears to be restored, the country's tourism ministry is wooing visitors back.
Lebanon has a lot going for it--beautiful beaches, good skiing, fine dining, fantastic historical sights, and cheap accommodation. ...Everglades to be put back on U.N. endangered list?
Jul 1st, 2009 at 10:00AM: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is meeting with a task force charged with overseeing the restoration of the Florida Everglades this week. He intends to tell them that the Obama administration will ask the United Nations World Heritage Committee to put the national park back on its endangered list when the committee meet in Spain this week. Two years ago, in what has been viewed as a ...How great is the Great Wall of China? Very!
Apr 23rd, 2009 at 3:00PM: I bet you thought the name said it all. A recent survey by of this World Heritage site – billed as "technologically advanced" – puts the original length of the wall at 5,500 miles, much further than the previous estimate of 3,700 miles. That's a difference of almost 50 percent!
This effort took more than two years of surveying with GPS tools, infrared technology and other mapping ...Does tourism hurt the planet ? Economist, Thomas Friedman's viewpoints
Jan 24th, 2009 at 3:00PM: This months issue of National Geographic Traveler has an interview with Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist who writes about economic issues and is the author of the book The World is Flat. Keith Bellows, the editor of the magazine asked the questions.
One question dove into the idea of how much does tourism hurt the planet and what should be done about it. In Friedman's mind, that ...Photo of the Day (9-10-08)
Sep 10th, 2008 at 3:00PM:
As I was searching out shots of Denmark in the Gadling Flickr photo pool (they're not many), I came across this one. Kronborg Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site is in Helsingør, the town of where I lived one semester in college. This is one place I'm planning to take my daughter to in December when we head her for an off-the-cuff, it-just-kind-of-came-about-trip. Yeah!
It's the ...San Antonio Missions need a restoration fix
Mar 8th, 2008 at 11:00AM: Even though there is National Park status for the San Antonio Missions, and they are of the 14 U.S. sites on the tentative list for possible World Heritage distinction, the money to restore them and preserve them is not enough---yet. So far $4 million dollars has been raised with another $11.5 million to go.
The missions were established almost 300 years ago, as Catherine mentioned in her post on ...WHS new "Tentative List": Places to Love--Poverty Point National Monument
Feb 11th, 2008 at 12:00PM: For the Gadling series "World Heritage Site new "Tentative List": Places to Love" we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list.
Number 6
Name of Site: Poverty Point National Monument and State Historic ...WHS new "Tentative List": Places to Love--Thomas Jefferson Buildings
Feb 8th, 2008 at 1:00PM: For the Gadling series "World Heritage Site new "Tentative List": Places to Love" we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list.
Number 4
Name of Site: Thomas Jefferson Buildings
Location: Poplar Forest and ...WHS New "Tentative List": Places to Love -- Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, Ohio
Feb 6th, 2008 at 9:30AM: For the Gadling series "World Heritage Site new "Tentative List": Places to Love" we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list. Number: 3 Name of site: Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks Location: Ohio Reason for importance ...World Heritage Sights Rated
Apr 5th, 2007 at 11:45AM: My wife and I are planning our upcoming trip to Norway and we're trying to decide whether it's worth the effort to take a boat called the Coastal Steamer up to the Western Fjords...places with pretty much unpronounceable (and unspellable) names like Geirangerfjord and Naroyfjord (names, several letters of which, do not seem displayable here because they are, well, weird-looking letters). Well, ...
