UNESCO inscribes 25 new sites on the World Heritage List, from Normandy to China

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has added 25 new sites to the World Heritage List for 2026: 19 cultural, five natural and one mixed. The composition of the new list spans different continents, from Europe to Asia, with a profile ranging from sites of wartime memory to centuries-old manufacturing traditions.

Among the best-known inscriptions are the Normandy landing beaches, Mount Olympus in Greece and the Tunisian village of Sidi Bou Saïd. Comoros obtained its first-ever inscription, with the Medinas of the Country’s Historic Sultanates: an entry that broadens the organization’s geographical representation toward a region previously without recognized sites.

In China, the Jingdezhen industrial site was inscribed, linked to centuries-old porcelain production: the complex includes 45 distinct locations, among workshops, quarries and traditional neighborhoods dedicated to the craft. In Japan, the Asuka-Fujiwara archaeological area entered the list, which includes the ruins of palaces and Buddhist temples and the first Japanese capital built according to a grid plan. These are two inscriptions that document production and administrative traditions of very long standing, in geographically and culturally distant contexts.

The geographical distribution of the new inscriptions — from Western Europe to North Africa, from insular East Africa to East Asia — reflects a stated criterion of balance among the world’s regions represented on the List. The Committee did not disclose, in the available extracts, the venue or the exact date of the session in which the inscriptions were formalized.

With the addition of the 25 sites, 2026 is confirmed as a year of significant expansion of the List, with the first-ever inscription for Comoros marking the broadening of UNESCO’s geographical coverage toward countries previously absent from the World Heritage roster. The overall number of sites inscribed on the List thus rises by 25 units compared to the previous year.