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.

The United Kingdom holds 35 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall to remote Atlantic archipelagos and the world’s largest blanket bog — spanning prehistoric, industrial, and natural heritage across four nations and several overseas territories.

India holds 44 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from Bronze Age Harappan cities and Mughal imperial fortresses to Himalayan wildlife corridors and a Le Corbusier modernist complex — making it one of the most culturally and ecologically diverse lists in the world.

China holds 60 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from the Terracotta Army and Great Wall to Silk Road cave temples, Neolithic ruins, and some of the world’s most spectacular natural landscapes, spanning nearly four decades of inscriptions.

Germany’s 55 UNESCO World Heritage Sites span Carolingian chapels, Viking trading towns, modernist factories, fossil beds, and vast North Sea mudflats — one of Europe’s most chronologically and architecturally diverse national registers.

Spain holds 50 UNESCO World Heritage Sites as of 2024 — from the Alhambra and Gaudí’s Barcelona to volcanic Canary Island parks, prehistoric cave art, and a working Roman lighthouse on the Atlantic coast.

A guide to France’s 54 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — Gothic cathedrals, Roman engineering, prehistoric caves, royal palaces and volcanic landscapes — and how to reach the quieter ones.