Portugal’s 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites span prehistoric Palaeolithic rock art, Manueline monasteries, Atlantic island vineyards, and the only surviving laurel forest of its kind in the world.

Iran holds 29 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, spanning Achaemenid ceremonial capitals, Bronze Age cities, living cave settlements, and two exceptional natural landscapes along the Caspian coast and in the arid south-east.

Turkey’s 22 UNESCO World Heritage Sites span Cappadocia’s rock-cut churches, Istanbul’s Byzantine and Ottoman monuments, Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Lycian ruins, and Lydian royal tombs — one of the densest archaeological landscapes on earth.

Brazil’s 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites range from the Baroque hilltop towns of Minas Gerais and a landmark site of Atlantic slave memory to Amazonian reserves and a newly inscribed karst canyon with prehistoric rock art.

The United States holds 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, from Yellowstone’s geothermal basin and the Grand Canyon’s layered geology to pre-Columbian earthwork cities and a 2024 Moravian settlement in Pennsylvania.

Russia holds 33 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, from the timber churches of Kizhi and the monasteries of the European north to Lake Baikal, the volcanoes of Kamchatka, and a newly inscribed Ice Age cave in the southern Urals.

Greece holds 20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from the Acropolis and Delphi to Meteora’s cliff monasteries and the newly inscribed Minoan palatial centres of Crete — spanning three millennia of continuous civilisation.

Japan holds 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from 7th-century Buddhist temples and the White Heron Castle to ancient cedar forests, remote Pacific islands, and a shared Le Corbusier building in Tokyo.

Mexico holds 36 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — the most in the Americas — ranging from the pyramids of Teotihuacán and Maya cities to monarch butterfly reserves and a modernist house in Mexico City.