Doesn't this website in many ways mirror how the world heritage list is represented? I don't state this in a negative way, I think it only shows the passion many Europeans feel concerning world heritage. In the United States if you surveyed 100 people (even in places with a WHS) I don't think you would find more than 10 people who actually knew what Unesco was. Most of the people that frequent this website are European, I may be the only American who frequents the website. There seems to be some presence in Asia and some from Australia and New Zealand. Like the world heritage list there is greater excitement and participation concerning world heritage in Europe compared to other continents.

Thinking of connections on this site it is clear most European WHS have far more connections than other regions. Seemingly Chinese, Japanese, and Indian WHS should have much more connections than they currently have. Korea only has alot now after I added about 100 new connections! Els was probably getting tired reading about Korea!

I guess where I am getting at is how does Unesco expand the passion many Europeans share concerning world heritage to other regions around the world?

it certainly seems to be true that the majority of contributors to this site appear to be from Europe - certainly insofar as the "visited count", Community and Forum are valid indicators. We could ruminate on why this might be but I am sure there are as many "thinking travellers" as a proportion of all travellers from US as there are from Europe and the reasons for the discrepancy between nations in contribution to this site probably lie elsewhere - not least of course for many (but, I agree, not for US citizens) "Language".

But just to clarify and, speaking personally, I don't regard my interest in WHS as being particularly related to UNESCO and, indeed, I am inclined to be rather critical of it as an organisation - and similarly of the WH "scheme" itself and the politics, both national and "heritage-related", involved in it. The farce currently surrounding the visit of the "European inspectors" ("Heritage Police") to see whether Liverpool "measures up" is just one of far too many negative aspects about the whole caboodle.

As far as I am concerned, UNESCO's "World Heritage" list it is just another entree, among many, to understanding the places and peoples I have visited, still hope to visit and will probably never visit. It certainly doesn't dominate my "travels", nor my travel-related interests (I have probably visited more WHS before they were inscribed than after!) but there is no escaping the fact that anyone interested in seeing and understanding the people, places, creatures, phenomena, history, geology .. . of this world can't ignore the "List" as a major source of inspiration and information. But, as we know, it is somewhat lopsided in limiting its view of the world to "Immovable" heritage - there are other dimensions which need to be explored and understood. Nor does an interest in it indicate an acceptance of the standard "Heritage Agenda" purveyed by the "Heritage Community", let alone a desire to be active in "persuading" people towards any particular view about "Heritage"!

Interesting comments. I would agree there are plenty of Americans that are "thinking travellers". They are just not focused on Unesco World Heritage. One example there are many American's who get their National Park booklet stamped after visiting national parks or monuments. In the US cultural and natural sites are preserved fairly well, probably to a similar degree to most of Europe. Also the United Nations is really not a popular organization for many Americans.

I find it interesting that certain countries, particularly ones in Europe seem to be more drawn to the Unesco world heritage process and label. Though this has grown to include plenty of countries outside Europe (China, Iran, etc).

Speaking of myself I graduated with a History BA, and have long been interested in history and cultures. However, I have only become aware of Unesco in recent years. My own travel plans are also not dominated by world heritage sites (exception perhaps in Korea, as I had plenty of time to visit all WHS, nearly all TWHS, and many other important sites). Also I have a wife, and while she loves travelling, she is probably not going to be interested in a industrial factory, tomb clusters, or a radio station because they are WHS!! Nevertheless, I do try to visit WHS if there is an opportunity.

Indeed I have put some effort into adding Australian connections (where I now live) and middle eastern connections (where I have travelled a fair bit) to help give more balance.


This is undoubtedly true. There's a fair bit of material on the web indicating some Americans have a lot of disquiet about the US relinquishing some sovereignty through WH inscription. Surprisingly, I don't see as much of this in Australia, which has similar conservative-leaning rural communities to the US.


I think that one factor is the abundance of cultural heritage, which is less prevalent in the "new world" as indigenous peoples tended to live in less permanent, less substantive structures and settlements (the Mayans being a notable exception). As such most inscriptions in the new world are natural and less precisely defined. For example, last weekend I went on a trek south of the Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains, regularly crossing the dead straight national park (WHS) boundary which made it seem a bit arbitrary.

I do notice that Americans are far more active in "ticking off" countries or geographical parts thereof. See http://mosttraveledpeople.com/ and the TCC.

The difference between them and "us" (or let's limit it to: myself) is that they often have become very wealthy and have started travelling when they retired. I think it is much more common for Europeans to travel around Europe from an early age on. With their parents, and also using railpasses for students etc. You don't have to be rich for that, you just build it all up over the years. I have now been travelling like that for over 20 years, and it would be hard to surpass that amount in just a few years after retirement.

Leaving aside the "extremities" of Europe few Europeans are going to live further than 100kms from a WHS - and most will be rather closer and often to several different sites. They come across a WHS far more often than just on their "annual vacation"! The paucity of Cultural sites in US also means that very few US citizens are going to live that close to a WHS.

Out of interest I have just looked on the US National Park Web site ( http://www.nps.gov ) at several US National Parks which are also WHS - Great Smoky Mountains and Yosemite for instance. As far as I can see, there is not a single UNESCO World Heritage logo on show!! And the main texts make NO mention that the sites are World Heritage sites. For Yosemite I found hidden away in the children's section - "Did you know Yosemite is a World Heritage Site? Learn more with the online World Heritage Junior Ranger program with its mascot Wally, the Wild Heritage Wolf."!! Amazing!! So this is the total extent to which the US Government Agency in charge of WHS-inscribed NPs "advertises" that fact and this presumably is indicative of the interest in and pride concerning the site's inscription!! So, it is perhaps hardly surprising if many US citizens don't know much about it. As a comparison I looked up UK's Natural site Jurassic Coast and the banners on every Web page contain the 2 UNESCO logos.

Regarding the number of "Connections" -
a. well, for a start, the more sites there are the more connections are likely. So, for Cultural sites Europe will inevitably have more.
b. Most areas of Europe have been part of different countries/empires at some time in relatively recent history and this creates connections between sites in different modern countries.
c. The historic European worldwide empires create connections between their own sites and those in other continents in a way which is less common elsewhere.

I wonder however what an analysis of "Number of connections" by cultural site would show? Would it indeed show a "skew" which could be laid at the door of those (ie "US"!) who have identified the connections? Sites consisting of complete cities like Rome and Venice are inevitably going to have large numbers of connections - and Europe certainly has more of these but on a "like for like" basis have we really failed to avoid a cultural and knowledge "bias" in our connection identification"?

Oh Els - what a "prejudiced" view!! "Often" very wealthy? Millions of US retirees are far from "very wealthy" but face enormous medical and care costs and can just about afford a retirement condo in some crowded area of Florida!

How is this for another (possibly?) prejudiced view -
US citizens have very short vacations - often only 2 weeks for much of their past lives unlike citizens of some European countries who always seem to be on holiday both from large annual leave entitlements and from accrued work time/flexidays etc etc!! As a result they travel less outside their own country.

I live in Los Angeles (2nd largest city in the US), within 10 hrs drive in any direction there are 3 WHS! Yosemite National Park (5hrs), the Grand Canyon (5hrs), and Redwoods National Park (10hrs). I was born and raised in northern Wisconsin, the closest WHS in any direction from my hometown was Cahokia Mounds (10hrs) drive South! How many WHS can you visit within 10hrs drive from Amsterdam, Paris, London, Berlin, Prague, Madrid, or Rome?



This rings true particularly for some of the older generation, in which this attitude was part in parcel with the American Dream. Work hard, buy a nice car, buy your dreamhouse, raise a family, retire, and then travel the world (Very long roadtrips on a RV or a nice cruise in the Carribean or to Europe) A stereotype in part, but one with some truth, but certainly not uniform. I would disagree about the very wealthy part! Solvigant you are correct (at least in my experience) about the little to no holiday! Personally, I'm not patient enough to wait until retirement to travel.



Going beyond the website, it is often difficult to find anything at the actual site that mentions it is actually a WHS. However, recently after visiting the Grand Canyon for the 2nd time I did notice a rather large display describing the Grand Canyon as a world heritage site. Perhaps, this is related to the US rejoing Unesco only a couple years ago?



I don't know about any real bias. However, one thing that stands out to me is the highly focused connections on European Architecture such as Romanesque, Rococo, Neo-Baroque, Isabelline style, Georgian Architecture, etc (there are many more). Nearly all sites are located within Europe with some sites being colonial outside Europe. These connections are interesting and often great additions to learn about architecture, however this contributes quite a bit to European WHS having more connections than the average WHS.

I also found that to be mostly true in the US, however I do remember visiting Cahokia Mounds with a good friend from Chicago. I had previously dragged him to many obscure sites around Europe (including the Spiennes Flint Mines) and he always commented on the signs associated with a UN body everywhere and said how you would never see that in US as the general regard for it was was pretty low.
When we pulled into Cahokia we were both amazed to see them flying UNESCO flags and proudly displaying the WHS certificate!
I notice as well that it made an impression on Klaus when he visited as it is also in his review.

I did not mean "the Americans" of course, but only the ones that rank high in the forementioned lists.

Sorry Els,
I misunderstood! Yes the Most Travelled People list is certainly dominated at the very top by Americans, some of whom seem to have made a pile and retired early. But further down there is a fair spread of nationalities and circumstances.
Of course you might expect a list which counts as separate "countries" every US state and territory to contain a fair number of US citizens.
What surprised me a little is how people who have visited e.g 822 "countries" can "only" have visited 322 World Heritage sites. A fair number of the high rollers haven't even claimed to have visited a single WHS. I guess it shows the "single mindedness" which is required if one is a "completist" for some list or another.
Mr Veley has visited EVERY UN country as well as his 822 as defined by his club but hasn't ever visited inter alia - Greenwich, Brugges, Cesky Krumlow, Gyeongyu - or even Chaco Canyon!! Amazing (but surely, missing out the Amsterdam Canals must be a mistake!!)!! I guess when you are flying in and out of so many places driven by a single minded desire to tick off that next country or island it can seem a "bit of a nuisance" to divert to see a place like Brugges (and "Belgium" counts as 4 "countries") !!
Such a shame - a salutary warning I feel about chasing a "List"!! There are many things beyond any list which are worth seeing/experiencing when travelling.

Very true, I do sometimes feel I devote a little too much time to ticking sites of the WH list, but in saying that I wouldn't make anywhere near the same amount of trips if it wasn't for the list.
Many times it is the bits in between the palaces and cultural landscapes that are most memorable, though for me it is mostly the bars that I 'remember'.

In regards to the MTP website is it still functioning? I signed up a month or so ago after it was mentioned on here. Every time I tried to do something it just seemed to be unavailable. *
Els I noticed that if you updated your WHS count on there you would be the joint highest scoring female when you get to Valencia. I can only muster 2nd place in the under 30 category :)
That being said I do quite like the lack of a competitive element to proceedings on this website. Whilst some people are well ahead in the site count it never really feels like a race, and a lot of valuable input into the 'community' comes from people that haven't seen so many sites. I think that is one of the reasons why I like it here.

* just noticed you have to pay a subscription to enter how many WHS you have visited, I'm quite happy to leave that well alone then.

Regarding MTP. I have done a comparison of the "Top 30 Visited" list on this site and on MTP. It is remarkably similar - which "shows" that statistical sampling works I suppose - but they have a bigger "voting sample" and, I guess a slightly different "population" in terms of interests and locations!! Our list reflects the larger proportion of Europeans (and Brits) who have "voted" in that it contains 6 sites not on the MTP list (all European with 3 British - MTP position in brackets) Stonehenge (31), Greenwich (80), Bath (32), Strasbourg (90), Amsterdam (338) and Belfries (171). The 6 which MTP has which we don't have are (with our position in brackets) - Rheims (83), Sydney Opera (48), Gt Wall 32), Cairo (53), Tallinn (103) and Giza/Pyramids (42).

The low position of Amsterdam at No 338 on the MTP list is inexplicable to me!! (as is the high position of Rheims at no 16!) I can only put down to meltwaterfall's suggestion thatt the site is defunct and is not being kept up to date - though Amsterdam was added 16 months ago there might not have been time for it to get fully "voted" on. Reading about Mr Veley he appears to have fallen on "hard times" and is looking to sell his Web site - "After spending nearly all of 2008-2009 and all of my remaining money developing MTP, and being unable to find advertising or sponsorship for it (2008 and 2009 were not good years for travel website investing), I went back to work and was forced to change MTP to a subscription model in order to keep it alive"!!

Across the respective "Top 10" lists there is only 1 difference - MTP has Statue of Liberty at 8 (whilst we have it at 11) and we have Versailles at 6 (which they have at 14). Even the Top 10 sequence is very similar with the top 4 being exactly the same!!

Herewith the 2 lists (Seq no/Site/Votes)

Worldheritagesite.org
1 Paris 235
2 Tower of London 223
3 Westminster 218
4 Rome 189
5 Venice 181
6 Versailles 179
7 Prague 179
8 Vienna 176
9 Florence 170
10 Vatican 167
11 Stat of Liberty 166
12 Gr Place Bruss 166
13 Brugge 162
14 Pisa 154
15 Koln 150
16 Budapest 145
17 Gaudi 144
18 Luxembourg 143
19 Schonbrunn 136
20 Stonehenge 130
21 Istanbul 130
22 Greenwich 126
23 Bath 125
24 Edinburgh 125
25 Salzburg 124
26 Strasbourg 120
27 Acropolis 118
28 Grand Canyon 117
29 Amsterdam 117
30 Belfries 114

MTP
1 Paris 1440
2 T of London 1431
3 Westminster 1340
4 Rome 1303
5 Vatican 1204
6 Prague 1145
7 Venice 1128
8 Stat of Liberty 1127
9 Vienna 1115
10 Florence 1051
11 Acropolis 992
12 Grand Canyon 980
13 Budapest 967
14 Versailles 966
15 Gr-Place Bruss 926
16 Rheims 874
17 Istanbul 863
18 Salzburg 808
19 Sydney Opera 798
20 Luxembourg 789
21 Pisa 777
22 Gt Wall 776
23 Koln 768
24 Gaudi 733
25 Cairo 730
26 Edinburgh 728
27 Brugge 727
28 Tallinn 726
29 Schonbrunn 717
30 Giza/Pyramids 688

I was just searching for a quote and read that statement. for most of the population that is very true.

I just thought I would see where in the EU* was the town furthest from a WHS (as the crow flies). The best I have found thus far is Kuhmo Finland which is the only settlement ≥ 10,000 I have found that is over 300km from its nearest WHS (Petäjävesi Old Church 301km, Struve GDA 311km, Solovetsky Islands 316km). Not saying that is conclusive but thought it may be of interest.

For mainland UK I think it is a near tie between Peterhead 180km to Neolithic Orkney a tad more to Edinburgh, and surprisingly Cromer 180km to Derwent Valley, and Canterbury. Peterhead probably gets the nod as a boat is needed. Kyle of Lochalsh is a similar distance from St Kilda but is too small to qualify.

For mainland Netherlands I don't think anywhere in the country is over 100km from a WHS, Enschede clocks in at a remote 88km from Shockland.

And just for winterkjm, in the continental USA I think it will be somewhere like Grand Forks on the border of North Dakota and Minnesota about 1,035km from the edge of Yellowstone and a touch more to Cahokia Mounds.

*excluding overseas territories such as French Guiana, Tahiti, Greenland ....

One location that just came to my mind are the Faroe islands - not sure if you checked those (don't have google maps at hand). Wikipedia says that they are 285 km from Shetland (which has a TL site but no WHS) and 300 km from Orkney (with Neolithic Orkney). No clue how far they are from St Kilda though...