Published on: 2026-07-28
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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July 28, 2026 Culture and Education
The session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee concluded in Busan, Republic of Korea, with the inscription of 25 new sites on the List. Two of them are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Kazakhstan is now represented in the List of Rock-cut Mosques and Associated Sacred Sites. The site is located on the Mangystau Peninsula, which lies on the coast of the Caspian Sea. It includes five sacred complexes carved into the rocks, as well as extensive adjacent burial grounds. The history of the complexes is connected with Sufi mentors who lived between the 12th and 18th centuries.
The List also includes the modernist architecture of Tashkent, which combines urbanism and Central Asian traditions. The site is an ensemble of ten modernist buildings and urban complexes built from the 1960s to the early 1990s. This period was a key stage in the restoration and transformation of Tashkent after the devastating 1966 earthquake. The ensemble includes museums, exhibition halls, hotels, residential complexes, cultural institutions, as well as scientific and infrastructure facilities, reflecting the wide functional range of late Soviet architecture.
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For the first time, three countries – Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, and South Sudan – ‘received’ their World Heritage sites. This is an important breakthrough for Africa: three countries on the continent were immediately included in the global register of cultural and natural treasures. The President of the Comoros Islands, Azali Assoumani, personally came to the session to mark this historic moment, emphasizing its significance for his country.
The list also includes Mount Olympus, which is located in northern Greece and is the highest mountain in this country. Thanks to the works of Hesiod and Homer, Olympus became one of the central images of Greek mythology throughout the Greco-Roman world and turned into a symbol of Greek civilization.
After the inclusion of new properties, the number of countries without a single heritage site decreased to 23. The UNESCO World Heritage List now includes a total of 1,273 sites in 173 countries.
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