Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Architectural and Park Landscape Complex and Pilgrimage Park

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is a breathtaking cultural landscape of great spiritual significance. Its natural setting – in which a series of symbolic places of worship relating to the Passion of Jesus Christ and the life of the Virgin Mary was laid out at the beginning of the 17th century – has remained virtually unchanged. It is still today a place of pilgrimage.

 Poland

Lesser Poland (Malopolska).Voivodship (formerly Bielsko-Biala)

N49 52 0 E19 40 0

Date of Inscription: 1999

Criteria: (ii)(iv)

Property : 380 ha

Buffer zone: 2,600 ha

Ref: 905

Source: https://whc.unesco.org

Hubei Shennongjia

Located in Hubei Province, in central-eastern China, the site consists of two components: Shennongding/Badong to the west and Laojunshan to the east. It protects the largest primary forests remaining in Central China and provides habitat for many rare animal species, such as the Chinese Giant Salamander, the Golden or Sichuan Snub-nosed Monkey, the Clouded Leopard, Common Leopard and the Asian Black Bear. Hubei Shennongjia is one of three centres of biodiversity in China. The site features prominently in the history of botanical research and was the object of international plant collecting expeditions in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

 China

N31 28 11 E110 14 38

Date of Inscription: 2016

Criteria: (ix)(x)

Property : 73,318 ha

Buffer zone: 41,536 ha

Ref: 1509

Source: http://whc.unesco.org

Mount Sanqingshan National Park

Mount Sanqingshan National Park, a 22,950 ha property located in the west of the Huyaiyu mountain range in the northeast of Jiangxi Province (in the east of central China) has been inscribed for its exceptional scenic quality, marked by the concentration of fantastically shaped pillars and peaks: 48 granite peaks and 89 granite pillars, many of which resemble human or animal silhouettes. The natural beauty of the 1,817 metre high Mount Huaiyu is further enhanced by the juxtaposition of granite features with the vegetation and particular meteorological conditions which make for an ever-changing and arresting landscape with bright halos on clouds and white rainbows. The area is subject to a combination of subtropical monsoonal and maritime influences and forms an island of temperate forest above the surrounding subtropical landscape. It also features forests and numerous waterfalls, some of them 60 metres in height, lakes and springs.

 China

N28 54 57 E118 3 52

Date of Inscription: 2008

Criteria: (vii)

Property : 22,950 ha

Buffer zone: 16,850 ha

Ref: 1292

Source: http://whc.unesco.org

Chengjiang Fossil Site

A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate. They record the early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem. The site documents at least sixteen phyla and a variety of enigmatic groups as well as about 196 species, presenting exceptional testimony to the rapid diversification of life on Earth 530 million years ago, when almost all of today’s major animal groups emerged. It opens a palaeobiological window of great significance to scholarship.

 China

N24 40 8 E102 58 38

Date of Inscription: 2012

Criteria: (viii)

Property : 512 ha

Buffer zone: 220 ha

Ref: 1388

Source: http://whc.unesco.org