Does this represent a trend that reflects us approaching a threshold of the number of potential successful nominations, or is this merely a coincidence or the result of something else that is not related to the number of potential world heritage sites such as austerity measures?

I have been wondering this for years, however whenever there seems to be a considerable decline in nominations, or a decline in European nominations, almost without fail the following year approaches 40 nominations and is dominated by Europe! For example, 2016 is a weak year for European nominations (likely around 5 inscriptions), but in 2017 there are 18! The total nominations for 2017 are 43 of which 37 are considered complete.

If any conclusion could be made, it is perhaps Western European nations are balancing the reality of limited sites of nomination potential with their ingenuity in bringing forth new and often more complex nominations (often transnational). Currently, the latter is working our pretty well.

I am sure Spain, Italy, and France will be quite strong in their nominations for years to come, but a whole lot of Europe has become quite stagnant in their nominations. Other examples like Germany, Denmark, and the UK seem to be rushing to get their last sites inscribed. Some users of this site have mentioned how the tentative list of Germany's and the UK are fairly weak, and may only result in a handful of successful nominations. We have seen Germany in particular face far more rejections and deferrals than in the past.

I don't expect to see many future nominations from these countries, instead mostly from Eastern and Mediterranean Europe.
Germany (finishing previous tentative list, I expect a couple of the newly nominated sites to be inscribed, but little else)
United Kingdom (Some success of late, Forth Bridge and Gibraltar, but what next? Wearmouth Jarrow and Darwin's Laboratory are not going anywhere.)
Ireland (Update in 2010, but no successful nominations yet. I view Ireland in a similar lens with Denmark, it may get a few for inscriptions, but little more.)
Sweden (little interest or potential for a large tentative list.)
Norway - (Svalbard should be inscribed soon enough, but even an updated tentative list will likely be short.)
Finland - (small potential for a large tentative list.)
Baltic States - (All three nations have small tentative lists, partially filled with failed nominations.)
Denmark (Besides Greenland, how much more inscriptions can Denmark really achieve? That being said, their nomination dossier for The par force hunting landscape in North Zealand convinced ICOMOS!)
Netherlands (little left to offer, excluding former colonial holdings in the Caribbean.)
Belgium (one of the most represented small nations, Belgium surely will have more inscriptions, but as of late nominations from Belgium, rarely originate in Belgium! Mostly transnational nominations in the last couple years.)
Luxembourg (nothing more to nominate, can't say they didn't try.)
Switzerland (little interest or potential for a large tentative list.)

European countries that will likely make up the lion's share of nominations for the region
Spain, Italy, France - (leaders in world heritage nominations, large tentative lists, and rich histories less tarnished by war than other large nations.)
Portugal - (updated tentative list coming soon.)
Poland - (tentative list update reportedly in the works.)
Greece - (updated tentative list, new activity after a long hiatus.)
Former Yugoslavia - (Very active countries, several nominations planned, but how long can new nominations be brought forward?)
Turkey - (No forseable end to successful nominations.)

I don't quite agree regarding Germany. Of course most worthy sites have already been nominated but some of the proposed sites (Darmstadt, Neuschwanstein, Caves of Ice Age art, Baden Baden) are world class. Moreover, we mentioned some nominations that could be successful in the future (Tempelhof, Olympia in Munich). AEG factory (a former TWHS) and some vernacular architecture (Rundlingdörfer or Altes Land, both of which contended for the last tentative list) could also be successful.
I completely agree regarding the other countries. I would also add: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Austria, Malta, Cyprus, Ukraine and Belorussia as countries with not much potential for further nominations.


I think these countries as well as former Yugoslavia are also approaching their full potential of successful nominations.
Spain, Italy, France and Greece can still offer quite a lot.
I would also add Russia, and to a lesser extent Iceland, as a potential source of multiple future nominations.

What other countries in the world would we consider as approaching their nomination potential? Some candidates could probably be Israel (!), Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Jordan, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Sri Lanka and probably many more.

What? Darwin isn't making it? Why did I go? :D

Honestly, I did like the Chatham docks and I do think a medieval site such as York would also be a welcome addition to the list. 19th and 20th century architecture are also lacking, so there is some room for growth.


I would agree on Italy. I would disagree on Spain and France. Reading the review on Mallorca and Ibiza by Solivagant and looking at the Rockart I feel Spain is well covered. For France, Roman sites are imho well covered, so don't quite get what Nimes would add here. I also had a stopover in Nimes and did not visit so this would be really annoying for me personally ;) You can't inscribe each and every vineyard in France. And not every mountain range. Again, I think they are well covered.

I appreciate both of your thoughts Assif and nfmungard, I am sure you have more expertise when it comes to Europe than me, so your analysis is welcome.
I find this question very interesting, which promoted my response. I may have to consider countries in Asia and North America in a future post.
I think much the same way, but I think France and Spain are very experienced and resourceful when it comes to world heritage nominations. Because of their size and diverse historical and architectural history I doubt we'll see a significant drop off in nominations in the coming years, but it has to slow down sometime one must imagine!

I would propose to have this discussion in new thread. It's not really specific to 2016.

Agreed! But, assuming that Els will move this and the previous few posts all together to a new subject ("Future Volume of nomiantions" ??), I comment on UK as follows


Indeed - The last recorded decisions of UK's "Tentative List Expert Group" were published on 9 Jan 2014 (meetings having taken place in Autumn 2013). The Lake District was Oked to go forward for the June 2017 WHC (described as the "2016 Nomination" since the papers had to be produced by end Jan that year). It was also said that "I also recommend that the deadline for the next round of Technical Evaluations should be set now, for autumn 2015, so as to ensure that sites may plan the development of their bids with greater certainty"
I can find NO mention of any such meeting NOR of ANY published decisions since Jan 2014.
Extrapolating on a similar potential timetable each year would mean that UK has effectively "missed" making any nomination for either the 2018 or the 2019 WHC (The latter would have required an announcement in Jan of this year). It has until Jan 2017 to make a decision on anything for the 2020 WHC.

The Jan 2015 decisions included this assessment of the 5 sites which asked to be considered for going forward
"The English Lake District should be nominated in January 2016.
·Chatham Dockyard and its Defences should not go forward for nomination
· The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland is not suitable for nomination at this stage
· The Flow Country is not suitable for nomination at this stage
· Jodrell Bank is not suitable for nomination at this stage
· The Twin Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow should not go forward for nomination (However, Wearmouth-Jarrow may wish to investigate an application to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register."

I take that as meaning that we will NOT ever see either Chatham Dockyard OR Wearmouth Jarrow nominated by UK since the same phrase with no mention of "at this stage" is used for both and that the next UK nomination MIGHT come from one of the other 3. But who knows when - i have found no "news" on any of them on the Web since this announcement in Jan 2014 so they would seem to be pretty moribund!!)

Any reason the UK are taken such a conservative approach to inscriptions? I felt Chatham would be an okay submission. And looking at the other named sites, I would argue that medieval England could use a few more inscriptions. But well.

UPDATE
I have just found this piece of news from 30 March 2016 re activity on a possible Jodrell Bank nomination. I quote from it
"We have some big challenges ahead, including .......... the progression of our case for UNESCO World Heritage Site status."
See - http://www.jodrellbank.net/new-heritage-officer-for-jodrell-bank/
At least that would seem to imply that Jodrell Bank doesn't regard the activites required to obtain WHS status as distracting from its continuing scientific work

So , I guess it might just be possible for Jodrell Bank to submit a case to the UK T List Committee this autumn in time to get permission in Jan 2017 to work up a nomination for 2020. Probably at least a 2 year gap with no nominations from UK - but could well be more. At least Jodrell Bank isn't yet another Cathedral, Mediaeval Town, Vineyard, Cultural Landscape, Palace, Work by a named 20C architect etc etc etc as per the "volume" countries!

Regarding France and Spain:
I think at least France could still come up with quite a few worthy sites. Carnac, Hangar Y, Meudon Observatory, D-Day beaches, WWI sites are on the current T list. Other sites to be considered are something from Cote d'Azur (Promenade des Anglais is being considered) and La Defense for its modern architecture.
Spain is admittedly of lesser potential, but could still convincingly nominate Madinat al-Zahra, Columbian sites, Madrid, Canarian sacred mountains and maybe some rural sites. Ciutat de Artes y Ciencias would also be a great addition.
I wouldn't say either of these countries is a dried well. Many other European countries are.

In regards to Chatham I still remain to be convinced it is even the best naval dockyard in the South East of England. It is interesting and I guess could sit alongside Karlskroner, but I'm not surprised it won't be progressing.

Joderell Bank is pretty serious about it's World Heritage Site potential, they have received funding to build a large museum and visitor complex based on the aim of becoming a WHS. I must admit I'm pretty excited about that one and it is a more innovative route that I would hope the better represented would venture down more.

If you folks allow me a cynical comment: barely two years ago we were pondering potential additons of 20th century architecture to the WH list. Now we're putting them on the same level as vineyards...

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=8&topic=1792

Based on the 2017 nomination list, next year we'll be complaining about the amount of pre-historic civilizations on the list (Mbanza Kongo, Dilmun, Kujataa, Taputapuatea, German Ice Age art caves, Talayotic Menorca).

Just saying... ;-)

I feel that the political momentum of the current WHS system will be hard to change, especially when a lot of countries with seemingly the most political capital when it comes to the WHS process are interested in nominating an almost infinite number of sites from their own countries. The "Big 4" European countries will probably find a way to keep nominating WHS at a similar rate indefinitely.

On a personal level, the more WHS the better, even though the WHS brand may be watered down a bit and it would be harder for WHS travelers to visit every site.

Well, at their current pace the US has about 20 more years of nominations before charges of over-representation might surface!

Moving past Europe, East Asia has a couple countries perhaps approaching their course in regards to their tentative list.

Japan (active, but as we've seen Japan's nominations are no longer inscribed easily.)
Korea (certainly a couple more inscriptions from the current tentative list, perhaps some worthy nominations may emerge from a planned update, but unless the Korean peninsula becomes one entity again, I doubt Korea will sustain their current world heritage activity we currently are witnessing.)
Vietnam - (tentative list is nearly exhausted, surely an update will produce more nominations, but how many will make it to inscription?)

Nevertheless, one country in East Asia is not stopping anytime soon!
China - (I see no reason for a slowdown, I might be in the minority here, but I daresay China is STILL underrepresented. Italy is 32 times smaller than China!)

Apparently Italy has too much UNESCO World Heritage sites, thats why they have no nomination for 2016! Though, their "generosity" only lasted one year since they have 3 nominations for 2017! Haha

http://www.thelocal.it/20160607/italy-puts-no-sites-forward-or-2016-unesco-world-heri tage-nominations