UNESCO Just Added 25 New World Heritage Sites—Here’s Where To Go

The D-Day beaches of Normandy are now a UNESCO World Heritage site, recognizing the coastal landscapes where Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944, and their enduring significance as places of remembrance.Michel...

August 9, 2026

The D-Day beaches of Normandy are now a UNESCO World Heritage site, recognizing the coastal landscapes where Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944, and their enduring significance as places of remembrance.

Michel Dehaye

Every year, UNESCO adds a new crop of places to its World Heritage List, recognizing landscapes, cities, archaeological sites, and cultural landmarks deemed to have “outstanding universal value.” Some are already household names. Others are places even well-traveled people may have never heard of.

This year's additions fall firmly into both camps.

At its latest meeting, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee added 25 new properties to the list: 19 cultural sites, five natural sites, and one that combines the two. Among them are places travelers have been visiting for decades, including the D-Day beaches of Normandy, Greece’s Mount Olympus, and the blue-and-white Tunisian village of Sidi Bou Saïd. But there are also plenty of places that may be less familiar: the ancient Xiongnu burial grounds of Mongolia, the elaborate theaters built in the Amazon during Brazil’s rubber boom, and the archaeological remains of Jingdezhen, the Chinese city whose kilns helped shape the global porcelain trade.

This year's class also brings three countries onto the World Heritage List for the first time. Comoros earned its inaugural inscription for the Medinas of the Historic Sultanates of the Comoros, a collection of centuries-old trading towns shaped by the cultures that moved across the Indian Ocean. São Tomé and Príncipe joined the list with the Roças of São Tomé and Príncipe, former colonial agricultural estates that preserve the difficult history of plantation agriculture and forced migration. And South Sudan's first World Heritage site, the Boma–Badingilo Migratory Landscape, protects a vast sweep of savanna, wetlands, and floodplains crossed by one of the world's largest terrestrial mammal migrations.

The United States also gained a new natural World Heritage site with Georgia's Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

For travelers, the new class offers plenty of reasons to start looking at the map, whether it's to explore the medieval Alamut fortresses of Iran, see the rock-cut mosques and sacred landscapes of Kazakhstan's Mangystau region, or dive among the coral reefs of Jordan's Aqaba Marine Reserve. Here are some of the most compelling new World Heritage sites to visit.

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Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, United States

Tea-colored waterways wind between cypress trees and floating islands in Georgia’s Okefenokee, a more than 400,000-acre refuge that’s home to alligators, black bears, sandhill cranes, and hundreds of bird species. The swamp is one of the largest blackwater wetland ecosystems in North America, and UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List for both its biodiversity and the natural forces—particularly water and fire—that continually reshape its peatlands, forests, lakes, and wetlands.

The best way to see it is from the water. Visitors can take guided boat tours or paddle miles of marked canoe and kayak trails from several entrances around the refuge. For a deeper trip, reserve one of the wilderness canoe routes, which can take several days and include nights on raised camping platforms in the swamp.

Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, Japan

Before Nara and Kyoto, there were Asuka and Fujiwara. Set among the rice paddies and low hills south of Nara, the former capitals were at the center of enormous political and cultural change between the late sixth and early eighth centuries, as Buddhism spread and Japan developed a centralized system of government.

UNESCO's new designation encompasses 19 sites, including palace ruins, Buddhist temples, monumental tombs, and the remains of Fujiwara-kyo, Japan's first capital laid out on a large-scale grid. Together, they document a formative period that helped shape the country for centuries to come.

Asuka is about an hour from Nara or Kyoto by train, making it possible to visit as a day trip. Once there, rent a bike to pedal between tombs, temple sites, villages, and rice fields; buses connect many of the major sites as well.

Aalto Works, Finland

Finland's newest World Heritage site doubles as the blueprint for an architecture road trip. Aalto Works brings together 13 buildings and complexes associated with Alvar Aalto, Aino Marsio-Aalto, Elissa Aalto, and their collaborators, spanning more than half a century of Finnish modernism.

The collection ranges from Paimio Sanatorium and the red-brick Säynätsalo Town Hall to Finlandia Hall and the Aalto House in Helsinki. UNESCO recognized the group for its distinctly Finnish take on the Modern Movement, particularly its human-centered approach and use of local materials and surrounding landscapes.

Several of the sites are in Helsinki, including the Aalto House and Studio Aalto, both of which can be visited only on guided tours. Advance reservations are recommended.

The Wider Area of Mount Olympus, Greece

Mount Olympus has been famous for a few thousand years, but its new UNESCO designation goes well beyond its reputation as the mythological home of Zeus and the Greek gods. Rising from near the Aegean coast to 9,573-foot Mytikas, Greece’s highest peak, the mountain encompasses forests, ravines, limestone cliffs, and alpine habitat with unusually rich plant diversity. The property also includes Dion, the ancient Macedonian sanctuary at the mountain's base.

UNESCO added the area as a mixed cultural and natural site, recognizing both its biodiversity and geological features and its enduring influence on mythology, art, and literature.

Litochoro, about 55 miles from Thessaloniki, is the main jumping-off point. From there, travelers can take short walks through Enipeas Gorge or tackle multi-day routes into the high country.

Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites, China

Jingdezhen has been producing porcelain for more than 1,000 years, sending its wares from southeastern China to imperial courts and, eventually, markets around the world. Its influence was so great that the city's name became virtually synonymous with fine Chinese porcelain.

The new World Heritage property brings together five areas associated with the industry, including kilns, workshops, raw-material extraction sites, transportation routes, and the remains of the Imperial Kiln. UNESCO recognized both the technical advances developed here and Jingdezhen's enormous influence on ceramics production, design, and global trade.

Porcelain is still very much a living industry in the city. Travelers can explore historic kiln sites, browse ceramics markets, visit working studios, and even try making their own. Start at the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum, built around the remains of Ming- and Qing-era imperial kilns, before heading into the city’s contemporary studio and workshop districts.

The full list of 25 new UNESCO sites

Here’s the complete list of new UNESCO additions in 2026:

1. Aalto Works, Finland
2. Beaches of the D-Day Landings, Normandy, 1944, France
3. The wider area of Mount Olympus, Greece
4. Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, USA
5. Alamūt Castle and Related Fortifications, Iran
6. Amazonia Theaters, Brazil
7. Ancient Buddhist Site of Sarnath, India
8. Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, Japan
9. Aqaba Marine Reserve, Jordan
10. Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, South Sudan
11. The Bony Fish Fossils of the Western Limfjord, Denmark
12. The Cemetery Complexes of the Xiongnu Nobility, Mongolia
13. Gdynia Modernist City Centre, Poland
14. Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites, China
15. The Medinas of the Historic Sultanates of the Comoros, Comoros
16. Mount Amel Castles, Lebanon
17. The Roças of Sao Tome and Principe, Sao Tome and Principe
18. Rock Mosques and Associated Sacred Sites of Mangystau, Kazakhstan
19. Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc, France
20. Sebastia, State of Palestine
21. The System of Italian-style Condominio Theatres, Italy
22. Tashkent Modernist Architecture, Uzbekistan
23. Village of Sidi Bou Saïd, Tunisia
24. Wadi Wurayah, United Arab Emirates
25. Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand