As of July 2024, the World Heritage List has 1,223 inscribed properties, six of which are in the Philippines.
Whether you’re an adventurer planning your itinerary or a traveler filling up your bucket list, chances are, you have seen or heard of places referred to as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But, what is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, really? How do these places earn the prestigious accolade?
UNESCO World Heritage Sites are places declared as having “outstanding universal value to humanity” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. The concept began in 1959 when the United Arab Republic (now Egypt and Syria) and Sudan sought help from UNESCO to rescue and preserve the ancient sites and monuments of the Egyptian Nubia.


The sites were threatened by the construction of the 3,830-meter-long Aswan High Dam. UNESCO responded with an appeal to the international community for assistance, which resulted in the largest archeological rescue operation in history.
The huge coordination effort and benefits that stemmed from the rescue led conservationists to conclude that a permanent system must be in place to preserve and protect other cultural heritage sites around the world. Support for this movement continued to build over time and in November 1972, UNESCO adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, also known as the World Heritage Convention.
The convention came into force on Dec. 17, 1975, after being ratified by 20 countries. Three years later, in 1978, the World Heritage List was created. It initially featured 12 destinations, including Germany’s Aachen Cathedral, Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, Canada’s L’Anse aux Meadows, Euthopia’s Lalïbela, Poland’s Wieliczka and Boschnia Royal Salt Mines, and United States’ Yellowstone National Park.




The list continued to grow in the next decades and included renowned sites like the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Taj Mahal in India, the Grand Canyon in the USA, and the Acropolis in Greece. As of July 31, 2024, the World Heritage List has 1,223 inscribed properties, six of which are in the Philippines.
How are sites added to the World Heritage List?
UNESCO World Heritage List features sites all over the globe with cultural and natural significance. To qualify, countries must submit their own sites to the program which are added by UNESCO to a “tentative list” before they are formally nominated. Only the 21 countries, or “State Parties,” comprising the World Heritage Convention are eligible to nominate sites.
In an interview with CNBC in 2021, UNESCO World Heritage Center Director Machtild Rossler said that the process to be inscribed on the prestigious list takes years. Several sites even waited for over two decades to earn their slots.


Rossler added that the committee meets once a year to decide which of the nominees should be included in the list. It revises the criteria regularly to reflect the evolution of the concept of world heritage. Still and all, countries would bear the long wait as the World Heritage sites are, in principle, inscribed “forever.”
To qualify, the site must be of “outstanding universal value” and an “irreplaceable source of life and inspiration” for generations to come and must meet at least one of the 10 criteria set by the organization. This includes the site’s ability to reflect exceptional beauty; significant stages in history; the interchange of human values over a span of time; and its association with events, traditions, ideas, beliefs, or artistic and literary works of outstanding universal performance. In addition, natural sites should be “significant natural habitats” for various life forms, including threatened species, as well as represent significant development of ecosystems.
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What are the benefits of being on the list?
First off, sites inscribed on the distinguished list gain more popularity, both from tourists and the press. Once a territory is added to the list, news organizations spread the word, getting the attention it didn’t have before which, in turn, creates a positive impact on the country’s tourism.
In fact, the most popular World Heritage Sites receive over 15 million visitors annually. The most visited site, the Forbidden City in China, recorded approximately 19.3 million tourists in 2023. The Great Smoky Mountains in USA had 13.3 million visitors in the same year, while the Taj Mahal in India recorded 4.5 million.


Once a site is declared a World Heritage Site it also becomes eligible for protection during war under the Geneva Conventions, which is used by every country as basis of humanitarian laws during wars. In addition, a World Heritage Site may receive financial assistance from the World Heritage Committee for activities that would aid its preservation and conservation.
How are sites removed from the World Heritage List?
According to Rossler, the delisting process begins with a warning sent to the concerned countries. Among the states that received multiple warnings are Peru for the over-tourism, landslides, and flooding at Machu Picchu, as well as Saint Petersburg in Russia for the supposed construction of the Gazprom Tower at the city’s center.


The warnings will come alongside UNESCO’s inspection of the site. The organization will then forward its findings to the World Heritage Committee which will determine if the site should be added to the “List of World Heritage in Danger,” also known as the “Danger List.”
Sites are added to the Danger List in accordance with Article 11 (4) of the convention which states that the list may include properties that are “threatened by serious and specific dangers,” such as armed conflict, construction, natural disasters, or deterioration or abandonment of the land.
56 properties are on the Danger List, as of October 2024. It includes USA’s Everglades National Park, the Old City and walls of Jerusalem, and every World Heritage site in Syria, Libya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All these sites will be removed from the list if their countries take the necessary steps to restore them, in the same way that Bethlehem did for its Church of Nativity, Ecuador for Galápangos Islands, and Nepal for Kathmandu Valley




The ultimate penalty comes in the delisting of the site from the World Heritage List. Currently, there are only three World Heritage sites that have been delisted to date: Oman’s Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (2007), Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley (2009), and United Kingdom’s Liverpool (2021). Rossel said that all these were failures not of the country, but the international community which has since taken the responsibility of looking after World Heritage sites.
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UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Philippines
The Philippines has three natural and three cultural UNESCO World Heritage sites. The first ones inscribed in 1993 were the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park and the Baroque Churches of the Philippines.
Located in the middle of the Sulu Sea, Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park spans 96,828 hectares, including the North and South Atolls and the Jessie Beazley Reef. According to UNESCO, the site has “outstanding universal value” found in its “pristine reefs with a high diversity of marine life.” Its reefs are home to 360 species of corals which is almost 90 percent of all coral species in the country. They also support 11 species of cetaceans, eleven species of sharks, and around 700 species of fishes. As one of the Philippines’ oldest ecosystems, the Tubbataha Reefs is key to the reproduction of marine organisms in the Sulu Sea and “help support fisheries outside its boundaries.”




Meanwhile, the Baroque Churches of the Philippines comprise four Roman Catholic churches built in the 16th and 18th centuries: The Church of the Immaculate Conception of San Agustin (Manila), Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion (Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur), Church of San Agustin (Paoay, Ilocos Norte), and Church of Santo Tomas de Villanueva (Miagao, Iloilo). They were inscribed on the World Heritage List for establishing “a style of building and design that was adapted to the physical conditions in the Philippines and had an important influence on later church architecture in the region.” These churches are celebrated for their artistic, intricate design seen in their massive stone structures, Baroque-style altars, walls with pyramidal finials, and statues of Patron Saints in local and traditional clothing. They all together formed a “new church-building tradition” that fuses European church design with the use of local materials and decorative motifs.




In 1995, UNESCO added the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras to the World Heritage List as it is an “outstanding example of an evolved, living cultural landscape” that masters the art of blending physical, socio-cultural, economic, religious, and political environments. The terraced fields were carved into the mountains of Banaue, Ifugao by the ancestors of the Igorot People over 2,000 years ago. It features terraced pond fields built from mud walls carefully carved with natural contours of hills and mountains. This, along with the construction of irrigation and farming systems in the area, makes the Banaue Rice Terraces a “living cultural landscape of unparalleled beauty.”


Three years later, in 1998, UNESCO named the Historic City of Vigan a World Heritage Site. A top tourist destination in the country, Vigan’s historic town was added to the list as it is the “most intact example in Asia of a planned Spanish colonial town, established in the 16th century.” Everything in the townscape—from St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Archbishop’s Palace to the City Hall, Provincial Capitol Building, and the well-preserved 19th century houses—will take you back to the vibrant Spanish times.
According to UNESCO, Vigan is “unique for having preserved much of its Hispanic colonial character” and for blending different architectural influences “to create a homogenous townscape.”


Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999 is the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park. The 22,000-hectare property features an 8.2-kilometer underground river that flows directly to the sea. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences—something UNESCO describes as a “significant global phenomenon.” Adding to the beauty and “outstanding universal value” of the park is its cave with remarkable rock formations. It also contains a full mountain-to-sea ecosystem which “provides significant habitat for biodiversity conservation


Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary is the latest property to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Philippines. Located in Davao Oriental, it was inscribed on the list in 2003 for providing “critical habitat for a range of plant and animal species.” Its elevation ranges from 75 to 1,637 meters above sea level, with various terrestrial and aquatic animals thriving in different elevations. According to UNESCO, the property’s distinguishing factor is the presence of endemic flora and fauna species, eight of which are found only in Mount Hamiguitan. These include the iconic Philippine eagle and Philippine cockatoo.
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The Philippines still has 24 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list since 1993. Eight of these were submitted in February 2024, including the Walled City of Manila, the Sacred Sites of Bukidnon, and the Samar Island Natural Park.
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