Bestselling guide to all 1,007 UNESCO World Heritage sites. Fully updated to include the latest sites added to the World Heritage List in June 2014. The List is managed by the World Heritage Committee and each site is judged under strict criteria - only the world’s most spectacular and extraordinary sites make it on to the List.UNESCO World Heritage sites include some of the most famous places in the world, such as the ancient Nabatean city of Petra in Jordan, the legendary Acropolis in Athens, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and Machu Picchu, the ‘Lost City of the Incas’, in Peru.26 sites were added to the List by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in June 2014. These included the 1000th site, Okavango Delta in Botswana, and Myanmar’s first property, Pyu Ancient Cities. Other sites included Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Makkah (Saudi Arabia), Grand Canal (China) and the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont (Italy).• Descriptions of all 1007 UNESCO World Heritage sites• Location map for every site• Over 700 colour photographsBackgroundThe World Heritage List includes properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. In 1972 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Convention concerning the Protection of the World’s Cultural and Natural Heritage. Since then, 1007 sites in 161 countries have been inscribed onto the list, 779 of which are cultural, 197 natural and 31 mixed properties.