The US is now home to 25 of the world’s 1,199 UNESCO World Heritage sites.
On Monday , the World Heritage Committee officiallynamed 42 new UNESCO World Heritage sites , which will now benefit from the highest level of inheritance auspices in the world . Thirty - three of the site appoint are of cultural significance and nine are natural land site , wreak the total ofUNESCO World Heritagesites to 1,199 locations across 168 nation .
The 42 unexampled sites include a wide mixed bag of locations , fromold tea timberland on Jingmai Mountainin southwest China toring - shaped viking - age fortressesin Denmark and the addition ofkey sections of the Silk Roadin Central Asia . The US gained a newfangled World Heritage site as well , theHopewell Ceremonial Earthworksalong the Ohio River , making it the twenty - fifth World Heritage site in the US and the first site in Ohio .
The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is a series of eight earthen enclosure complex that were built between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago in present - day Ohio . They are the most accurate surviving agency of the autochthonous Hopewell culture . Complex and accurate , the earthwork let in geometrical squares , circles and octagon , as well as hilltops sculpted to close in large center .
Photo by Hopewell Culture NHP/US National Park Service, Courtesy UNESCO
The earthworks admit alignment with the cycle of the sunlight and the synodic month , and were utilize as ceremonial website . artefact discover on - situation have include some of the adept art object produced in pre - Columbian North America . These found objects also give a bigger moving picture into the chronicle of the Hopewell citizenry , with artifacts create from material not local to the region , showing that those who built the earthwork had striking with mass as far away as Florida and the Yellowstone basin .
It wasannounced in May 2022that the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks were defer for nomination bythe National Park Service . The UNESCO committee deemed the Hopewell situation as consume " salient universal value , " deeming it worthy of particular protective covering due to the earthworks being " masterpiece of human originative whizz " and " a unequalled testimonial to the tradition of the indigenous Hopewell culture of two millennia ago . "
If you ’d like to visit the newest US UNESCO world inheritance site , school principal to the south - central townsfolk of Chillicothe , Ohio , about one hr south of Columbus . you’re able to find out more information about chat the Hopewell Culture National Historical Parkhere .
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