How this guide is made

Two kinds of information

Every site page combines facts and writing, and we keep them apart.

Facts are the identifying details of an inscribed site: its name, countries, category, criteria, year of inscription, coordinates, area and whether it is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. We take them from open data (see Sources), and the same data generates the country, region, theme and criterion pages, so those pages never drift from the site pages.

Writing is ours: the history, what to expect on the ground, practical planning, local culture and the rest. Each site is researched from published sources, which are listed at the foot of its page, and written in our own words.

How a guide is written and checked

1. A draft is researched and written to a fixed template, so every guide answers the same questions in the same order.
2. Every claim that could be wrong, such as a date, a distance, an opening time or a fee, has to be traceable to a source.
3. A person reads each draft before it is added to the site. Only a person marks a guide as complete.
4. Practical details carry a "checked on" date, because timetables, fees and access change.

All 1,196 sites have a page, built from the facts above. The written guides are being added one site at a time, so most pages are still short. A page without a guide says so.

Corrections

If something is wrong or missing, every site page has a link to tell us. Include a source if you can. An editor reads each message, and when we change a page we update its date.

Sponsors and independence

A site page may carry one clearly labelled sponsor. Sponsors have no say in what we write. heritage.world is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to UNESCO. We link to the official World Heritage Centre page for each site, and we do not reproduce its text, photographs or emblem.