world heritage list

Photography is often a case of having to wait for that perfect shot, as Vit Hassan discovered when visiting Meroe. The golden sands of the desert against the ancient Nubian pyramids gave the perfect backdrop, and after taking his photograph, Vit Hassan took the one Heritage Key features ten minutes later as the shadows set into the landscape, and the scenery became more defined.

The Sahara desert covers the length of Egypt, down to the site of the city of Meroe, near the modern day border with Sudan aside the River Nile. Meroe intrigues many archaeologists for the sense of mystery surrounding it - a city where little is known about the people who lived there or why they left, just simply disappearing.

The UNESCO World Heritage List is possibly the best known list, of anything, anywhere on Earth. One of UNESCO's core projects, it is intended to identify and safeguard the world's natural and cultural treasures. Listing by UNESCO is the ambition of many sites, large and small, around the world because it not only brings prestige and tourist dollars, but it also brings with it the clout of UNESCO and and expertise in the preservation and conservation of sites.  

Jethro Lennox is the publishing manager responsible for UNESCO's new The World's Heritage: A Complete Guide to the Most Extraordinary Places, which features every UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, he tells us how the World Heritage Site programme came about, and what criteria UNESCO uses when deciding what sites to include on its prestigious and ever-growing list.

Two giants of travel and world heritage teamed up this Thursday, as UNESCO and online community site TripAdvisor launched a partnership to help save some of the world's greatest cultural sites. The pairing will see TripAdvisor pledge an initial $1.5million (£919,000) towards UNESCO's ambitious World Heritage Centre, from which the UN's culture wing will observe and preserve some 890 sites on its World Heritage List. These include some of the planet's most celebrated ancient places, such as Stonehenge, the Theban Necropolis and Chichen Itza.

On the banks of the Nile, some 200km north-east from Khartoum is the ancient city of Meroe - the southern capital of the Kushite empire, which spanned across Sudan and part of Ethiopia. Nearby are a group of villages called Bajrawia which is where today's Flickr photograph was taken by Vit Hassan, who captured this stunning sandstorm engulfing the area.

After the addition of 13 sites to UNESCO's World Heritage, the list now totals at 890 sites, containing sites of cultural and archaeological importance, as well as sites famous for their natural beauty and environmental grandness. Of the 13 sites added, quite a few may be 'considered ancient'. Congratulations for joining the list to:

The Sacred City of Caral-Supe, Peru

Over 5,000 years old, this ancient city went undiscovered until 1948. The 'Ciudad Sagrada de Caral' dates back to the Late Archaic Period of the Central Andes and is the oldest centre of civilization in the Americas. Exceptionally well-preserved, the site is impressive in terms of its design and the complexity of its architectural, especially its monumental stone and earthen platform mounts and sunken circular courts.