A collection of placemarks showing all 788 of the UNESCO World Heritage sites was first published at the Google Earth Community forums a year ago. The World Heritage sites include things like the Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Timbuktu, etc. Having a site marked a World Heritage Site can greatly improve tourism as I witnessed down in the Caribbean.
The first release of this collection was for Keyhole and was published in October 2004 by “aladdin” here, but the links are now kind of broken. Then shortly after Google Earth beta first released someone called “Herrminator” wrote a script to enhance the collection with better descriptions, photos, and even the sub-sites (those Heritage sites which have multiple locations). You can download the improved World Heritage sites 
and make sure you click on the placemarks to read the descriptions. Here’s the forum post where Herminator keeps his collection.
By the way, some of the locations of the placemarks apparently are incorrect. This is a problem with the World Heritage’s own database, not the GE file. If you find an incorrect location of a placemark, contact the people at the World Heritage web site and let them know. Herminator occasionally re-runs his scripts and updates the collection and will capture any corrections.
Writing a story about this collection slipped through the cracks as I was preparing to create the Google Earth Blog this summer, I just assumed I had written about it. It is definitely worth checking out, and if it isn’t already in the Wikipedia, I will add it.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
I like it
There are now 812 sites 😉 and the placemarks have been updated!
Thanks for the update on the statistics!
Nice site.
Check out this introduction article on World Heritage Site:
http://www.articleworld.org/World_Heritage_Site
Is there any intent to make an official ‘World Heritage Site’ layer that can be turned on and off? Thanks.
I have been using the UNESCO interactive map but found it somewhat annoying. I had hoped to be able to print a section of it that showed the sites, labeled, in a legible size. That is not possible as the map cannot be enlarged (the window is small and will not enlarge like a Google Maps window) and will not show labels on sites at a viewable size. Also, the popup windows block other info and appear annoyingly unbidden. So I tried to do the same on Google Earth. No luck. I tried searching for UNESCO World Heritage Sites on GE, but all it displayed were places with the word “Heritage” in them, such as Heritage Hotel. It would be great to add these sites to GE under Places. Thanks you for your wonderful work, Frank!
Aren’t there now 1031 World Heritage sites and increasing annually?