Twenty-six sites have been added to , designating their cultural and natural importance.
Locations include a sacred mountain in Malawi; petroglyphs in South Korea; remains of a port and forts from 17th century Port Royal, Jamaica; a king's palaces in Germany; and a river canyon in Brazil noted for its biodiversity.
The World Heritage List, now , includes "cultural and natural properties of outstanding universal value." Sites have been added almost every year since 1978. UNESCO is a United Nations agency focused on culture, science and education.
Representatives of 21 countries on the World Heritage Committee to finalize which locations to add to the list. Countries with World Heritage sites them; countries with designated sites could also receive funding to help with that conservation.
Here's a selection of some of the locations added this year:
Bavarian palaces
King Ludwig II of Bavaria had these grand palaces built between 1864 and 1886 in what is now Germany, . He ascended to the throne at age 18 and has been called the "," because of his The four palace complexes listed are called Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee. The palaces are now , "records in stone of the ideal fantasy world which the king built as a refuge from reality," according to a biography on a .
Imperial tombs in China
The necropolis is located in north-central China's Ningxia region. People from the Xixia Dynasty are buried among the "nine imperial mausoleums, 271 subordinate tombs, a northern architectural complex, and 32 flood control structures," as . The dynasty lasted from 1038 to 1227, when it was destroyed by .
China's the site shows "the crucial role of Xixia as a key distribution center on the Silk Roads during the 11th and 13th centuries." It added that the location is "the largest, highest-ranked, and most intact archaeological site from the Xixia period that has survived to the present day."
Remains of 17th century Port Royal, Jamaica
Port Royal, in southeastern Jamaica, was a major English port city in the 17th century. , it was a center of transatlantic trade, which included enslaved Africans. It was also a . A 1692 earthquake pushed .
Ecosystems of the Bijagós Islands
The Bijagós Archipelago, off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, is known for its biodiversity. It's home to "endangered Green and Leatherback turtles, manatees, dolphins, and over 870,000 migratory shorebirds," .
Memorials to the Cambodian genocide
The communist Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s. Two former prisons and an execution site are included in the World Heritage List designation. An ended its work in 2022, holding just members accountable for the regime's crimes.
The full list of new sites for 2025
- (Cambodia)
- (Guinea-Bissau)
- (Tajikistan)
- (Cameroon)
- (United Arab Emirates)
- (Malaysia)
- (Italy)
- (Sierra Leone)
- (India)
- (France)
- (Greece)
- (North Korea)
- (Malawi)
- (Denmark)
- (Australia)
- (Brazil)
- (South Korea)
- (Iran)
- (Russia)
- (Turkey)
- (Jamaica)
- (Panama)
- (Germany)
- (Mexico)
- (China)
- (Vietnam)
The committee also approved extending two existing national parks that were already listed. Vietnam's Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park to include the adjoining Hin Nam No National Park in Laos. And South Africa's iSimangaliso Wetland Park, listed in 1999, to include Maputo National Park in Mozambique.
Copyright 2025 NPR
