As many on this site know, the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary and the Dresden Elbe Valley are infamous in world heritage lore as the only sites that have ever been delisted by UNESCO. As a traveler, I was wondering whether or not other travelers on the website count these delisted sites to the total number of world heritage sites that they have visited.

As a response, I would encourage other travelers to state if they include these delisted sites and state a brief argument for why or why not you include delisted sites to your travel total. I am not looking for a debate, but I am just interested to hear different opinions.

I have visited Dresden, but do not include it in my count.
It's not even possible on this website, I've programmed it that way!

No - but I do have a separate list of "De-listed sites I have visited" which, at the moment consists of a "full house" of 2!! If you use the "Browse on sites by country" on this Web site the de-listed sites are still there under "De-listed Sites" - together with any reviews made of them (including my 2). Interestingly UNESCO continues to show such sites also on its Web list with a line struck through the site name - http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/
I have never been able to work out whether this is to perpetuate ad infinitum the "shame" meted out on the countries who have joined such an infamous grouping or for some other reason!


It would be completely illogical/incorrect to include de-listed sites in a list which was mentally titled "Current WHS I have visited" but there is nothing to stop you maintaining a list of "Places I have visited which are or were WHS"!! Or "sites I have visited which were WHS when I visited them" or "Sites I have visited which later became WHS (whether or not they still are!)"

I am sure other users of this site keep a wide range of "travel lists" - each having one's own personal "set of rules" (we are not in competition after all!) - and we have already discussed on this Web site what might/might not constitute "visited"! On which subject every one will have their own opinion

Listophilles are never short of subjects about which they can devise and maintain a "List". A couple more WH-related lists I mentally keep are
a. Sites I have visited which have been removed from T Lists
b. Sites I visited before they became WHS

I am waiting for South Africa to inscribe The Kimberly Mines (with its "Big Hole") then I might work out how long my list of "WHS I have (only) seen from the air" might be!! In fact I might set about it straight away.........!

I have that list too! 6 I think (Upper Douro, Dolomites, Uluru, Surtsey!, Southern Öland, Gulf of Porto) Mt Etna is readying itself to join as well. I could easily have seen more if I had been paying constant attention on flights though.
Frustratingly sometimes these sites are better viewed from the air, but I don't count them in 'my official tally'. I guess if I had taken a flight specifically to see the site rather than spying it on the way to somewhere else I would count it as a visit.

To answer KSTraveler's original question, I do include Dresden whenever people ask me how many I have visited, it normally comes with an asterisk though, and sometimes generates further conversation/ extra boredom depending on who I'm talking to.

My rationale: it is because I visited specifically because it was a World Heritage Site, and what I saw was worthy of being on the list at the time I saw it (though to be honest I still think it is very much worthy of being on the list, but that is a different matter). I still think I would count it if I was to visit for the first time since its de-listing, though I'm not sure I would do the same with the Arabian Oryx sanctuary unless I ventured into the remnant core that may actually have some Oryx in it.

It is just a personal thing, and we all have different ideas of what constitutes a visit or a tick off the list, but I'm happy being flexible on this.