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.
Related Images
A walkway through a mountain peak in Chamonix, France
The Skellig Islands, Skellig Michael and Little Skellig, in Ireland
The village of Aguerd Oudad and the larger town of Tafraout in Morocco
Mua Caves in the Ninh Bình province of Vietnam
Bath, Somerset, England
hanging bridge near Manali
Firefall at Horsetail Fall, Yosemite National Park, California
Wildflowers in bloom at Lost Dutchman State Park in Arizona, USA
Bing Today Images
A traboule in Lyon, France
Nov 16, 2025
View over Athens and the Acropolis, Greece
Nov 16, 2023
The interior of the Abu Simbel Great Temple in Egypt
Nov 16, 2020
Fog shrouds the Bavarian Alps in Germany
Nov 16, 2019
