Aksum (inscribed 1980) was one of the four great empires of the ancient world — its stelae field has obelisks up to 33m (the tallest ancient monolith ever attempted); the Stele 2 (24m) was in Rome from 1937 to 2008, removed by Mussolini. The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion claims to house the Ark of the Covenant, guarded by a single monk for life.
Cartagena de Indias (inscribed 1984) is the most fortified Spanish colonial port in the Americas: the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas (1536–1657), 11 km of city walls (up to 17m thick), and Admiral Blas de Lezo’s 1741 defeat of a British fleet of 186 ships with only 3,000 men. The coloured colonial city within the walls is García Márquez’s city — the setting of “Love in the Time of Cholera.”
Erbil Citadel (inscribed 2014, In Danger) is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world: a 26-metre-high artificial mound (tell) of 8,000+ years of compressed urban debris — ancient Arbela of the Assyrian Empire, the Ishtar Temple, and the city where Darius III fled after Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela (331 BCE). The Kurdistan Region’s best-preserved pre-Islamic heritage.
Chan Chan (inscribed 1986, In Danger 1986) is the largest pre-Columbian city in South America: 10 royal Chimu adobe ciudadela compounds covering 20 km² in the Moche Valley, each a palace-mausoleum for a successive king (c. 900–1470 CE), with geometric fish and bird friezes. The Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Moche culture, 100–800 CE) are 8 km south with polychrome murals of the Decapitator deity.
Djenné (inscribed 1988, In Danger 2016) contains the world’s largest mud-brick building — the Great Mosque (1907, rebuilt on a 13th-century foundation, 75×70m with three towers) — and the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa: Djenné-Djenno (250 BCE), 3 km south. The annual crépissage (April–May), when the entire male community replasters the mosque in one day, is one of the world’s most spectacular living heritage events.
Ancient Merv (inscribed 1999) is Central Asia’s greatest Silk Road site: 4,000 years of superimposed cities (Bronze Age to Mongol) on the Murghab oasis of Turkmenistan — the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar Mausoleum (1157 CE, double-shell dome, 38m) stands alone on what was once the largest city in the medieval world (pop. 200,000–500,000), destroyed by the Mongols in 1221 CE.
Göbekli Tepe (inscribed 2018) is the world’s oldest ritual complex: T-shaped limestone megaliths (9,500 BCE) with carved foxes, boars, and vultures in circular enclosures on a hilltop in southeastern Turkey — built by hunter-gatherers 7,000 years before Stonehenge. The Şanlıurfa Museum displays the Urfa Man (9,000 BCE), the world’s oldest life-sized human sculpture, found here. Harran’s ancient university is 44 km south.
Nan Madol (inscribed 2016, In Danger) is the only ancient city built on a coral reef: 92 artificial islets of interlocking basalt prisms (950,000 tonnes total) in the tidal flat of Pohnpei, Micronesia — the ceremonial capital of the Saudeleur dynasty (c. 1100–1628 CE). Nandauwas royal tomb has 20m walls of basalt logs, no mortar. One of the wettest and most remote UNESCO sites on Earth.
Caral-Supe (inscribed 2009) is the oldest city in the Americas: the capital of the Norte Chico civilization (c. 2600 BCE), contemporaneous with the pyramids of Giza, with 6 platform mounds (the Pirámide Mayor: 154×138×18m), sunken circular plazas, and no pottery or weapons. Chan Chan (Chimu adobe city, inscribed 1986, In Danger), the largest pre-Columbian city, is 380 km north.
Ani (inscribed 2016) is the ruined medieval capital of the Bagratid Armenian Kingdom (961–1064 CE) on Turkey’s Armenian border: the Cathedral of Ani (1001 CE, architect Tiridates — who also repaired Hagia Sophia’s dome), the Church of the Redeemer split by lightning, and the Church of St. Gregory with the finest surviving medieval Armenian frescoes. Kars, the Russian tsarist garrison town, is the base.
