Cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, USA
© Brad McGinley Photography/Getty Image
A 50-year balancing act. 50 years of World Heritage Sites
At its World Heritage Convention on November 16, 1972, UNESCO adopted an international treaty that for the first time linked the concepts of nature conservation and preservation of cultural properties. The World Heritage Sites program was sparked by Egypt's planned construction of the Aswan High Dam, which would have flooded a large swath of the Nile Valley and thousands of archeological treasures.
Mesa Verde National Park, where Ancestral Puebloans lived for seven centuries, was among the first World Heritage Sites chosen by the UNESCO committee, in 1978.
View of the Himalayas from Khalia top trek trail in Kumaon, India
Virgin River in Zion National Park, Utah
Ruins of the medieval castle of the Knights of St. John above the village of Chorio, Halki Island, Greece
Rock formations in Badlands National Park during a lightning storm, South Dakota
Thuringian Forest in autumn with Wartburg Castle, Germany
Naqsh-e Rustam archaeological site near Persepolis, Iran
Marble Canyon bridges over the Colorado River at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in northern Arizona
Ruins of the ancient university of Nalanda in Bihar, India
