Overview

• The World Heritage Committee inscribed 26 new properties—21 cultural sites, four natural areas and one mixed site at North Korea’s Mount Kumgang—during its July session in Paris.
• Four newly added sites are in Africa: Cameroon’s Diy-Gid-Biy archaeological landscape, Guinea-Bissau’s Bijagós Archipelago, Malawi’s Mount Mulanje and Sierra Leone’s Gola-Tiwai Complex.
• Three African sites—the early Christian city of Abu Mena (Egypt), Libya’s Old Town of Ghadamès and Madagascar’s rainforests—were removed from the Danger List after conservation gains.
• About one-third of the new inscriptions spotlight prehistoric landscapes and rock-art complexes across Europe, the Middle East, South America and Australia.
• A transboundary natural park of roughly 1,545 square miles spanning South Africa and Mozambique was approved, and the US formally withdrew from UNESCO days after the meeting.