A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, scientific or other forms of significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity".
Built in murus dacicus style, the six Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains, in Romania, were created in the 1st centuries BC and AD as protection against Roman conquest, and played an important role during the Roman-Dacian wars.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was founded in 1965 in Warsaw as a result of the Venice Charter of 1964 and offers advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites.
Hortobágy is an 800 km2 national park in eastern Hungary, rich with folklore and cultural history. The park, a part of the Alföld, was designated as a national park in 1973, and elected among the World Heritage sites in 1999. The Hortobágy is Hungary's largest protected area, and the largest semi-natural grassland in Europe.
Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties [that] represent the combined works of nature and of man" and falls into three main categories:
- "a landscape designed and created intentionally by man"
- an "organically evolved landscape" which may be a "relict landscape" or a "continuing landscape"
- an "associative cultural landscape" which may be valued because of the "religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element."
Neuf-Brisach is a fortified town and commune of the department of Haut-Rhin in the French region of Alsace. The fortified town was intended to guard the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire and, subsequently, the German states. It was built after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 that resulted in France losing the town of Breisach, on the opposite bank of the Rhine. The town's name means New Breisach.
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.
An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. Intangible heritage consists of nonphysical intellectual wealth, such as folklore, customs, beliefs, traditions, knowledge, and language. Intangible cultural heritage is considered by member states of UNESCO in relation to the tangible World Heritage focusing on intangible aspects of culture. In 2001, UNESCO made a survey among States and NGOs to try to agree on a definition, and the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was drafted in 2003 for its protection and promotion.
The Blue Shield, formerly the International Committee of the Blue Shield, is an international organization founded in 1996 to protect the world's cultural heritage from threats such as armed conflict and natural disasters. Originally intended as the "cultural equivalent of the Red Cross", its name derives from the blue shield symbol designed by Jan Zachwatowicz, used to signify cultural sites protected by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict.
Europa Nostra is a pan-European Federation for Cultural Heritage, representing citizens' organisations that work on safeguarding Europe's cultural and natural heritage. It is the voice of this movement to relevant international bodies, in particular the European Union, the Council of Europe and UNESCO. It has consultative status with UNESCO and is recognised as an NGO partner.
The Bremen Roland is a statue of Roland, erected in 1404. It stands in the market square (Rathausplatz) of Bremen, Germany, facing the cathedral, and shows Roland, paladin of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and hero of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass.
Woodland Caribou Provincial Park is a provincial park in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, west of the municipality of Red Lake. It borders Atikaki Provincial Park and Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba, and is made up of Canadian Shield and boreal forest. Woodland Caribou Provincial Park is a wilderness park of 450,000 hectares, and it became part of the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018.
Cultural property, also known as cultural patrimony, comprises the physical items that are part of the cultural heritage of a group or society, as opposed to less tangible cultural expressions. They include such items as cultural landscapes, historic buildings, works of art, archaeological sites, as well as collections of libraries, archives and museums.
Peter G. Stone is the current United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University. He was the vice-president of Blue Shield International from 2017 - 2020, and was elected president at the 2020 General Assembly. He is also a founding member and the chair of the UK Committee of that organisation. For his long career and merits in the field of heritage education, in 2011 Stone was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil).
