In 1972 UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, adopted the “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage”. The Convention has established a list, the World Heritage List, of natural or cultural sites deemed of possessing universal value. At the present there are more than 600 sites on the List, twelve of which are in Sweden..

What is a “Cultural Heritage Site”?

Article 1 of the Convention defines Cultural Heritage Sites as follows:

– Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting of universal value. Example: the Pyramids of Egypt.

– Groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science. Example: The Naval City of Karlskrona.

– Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological point of view. Example: the terraced rice-fields of the Philippines cordillera.

Article 2 stipulates similar conditions in regard to Natural Heritage Sites.