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View All the World Heritage Sites

October 13, 2005

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.

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PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

Comments

  1. shri ram says

    October 14, 2005 at 7:06 am

    I like it

  2. Herrminator says

    October 15, 2005 at 1:14 pm

    There are now 812 sites 😉 and the placemarks have been updated!

  3. Frank Taylor says

    October 16, 2005 at 11:58 am

    Thanks for the update on the statistics!

  4. World Heritage Site says

    June 8, 2006 at 6:19 pm

    Nice site.
    Check out this introduction article on World Heritage Site:
    http://www.articleworld.org/World_Heritage_Site

  5. Doug D says

    August 14, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    Is there any intent to make an official ‘World Heritage Site’ layer that can be turned on and off? Thanks.

  6. Lyrinda Snyderman says

    December 3, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    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!

  7. Bruce H says

    December 10, 2015 at 6:24 pm

    Aren’t there now 1031 World Heritage sites and increasing annually?



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

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