The Wadden Sea, Cologne Cathedral and the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen have one thing in common: They have been designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, marking them as places of exceptional value to all of humanity.
There are now 54 World Heritage Sites in Germany, and, for the 20th time, the German UNESCO Commission invited people to these protected sites with a variety of activities for World Heritage Day on Sunday.
“The aim of the day of action is to make World Heritage accessible to everyone,” German UNESCO Commission President Maria Böhmer said at a ceremony in St Michael’s Church in the northern German city of Hildesheim.
The World Heritage Day was opened there under the motto “Convey, Connect, Enthuse.” It is a “very beautiful, colourful, lively festival,” a spokesman said on Sunday afternoon.
The Romanesque cathedral and St Michael’s Church in the approximately 1,200-year-old city have been World Cultural Heritage sites since 1985.
According to UNESCO, more than 350 events are on the programme across Germany. These range from a torchlight tour for children through the caves of the Swabian Jura to a mining adventure hike in the Ore Mountains and a rap tour through Hamburg’s Speicherstadt.
There are now more than 1,200 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 168 countries worldwide, and the list expands every year.
Already nominated are Germany’s castles of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee. The World Heritage Committee is expected to decide in July whether they will be added to the World Heritage list.
In the meantime, some World Heritage Sites are transnational. Germany’s Ancient Beech Forests were added to the list in 2011 as an extension of the Carpathian Beech Forests, which span 18 countries in Central and South-Eastern Europe.
The Wadden Sea, on the edge of the North Sea, was included in 2009 and extended in 2014 to include the Danish Wadden Sea.
In the German state of Lower Saxony, the Rammelsberg Mine, the old town of Goslar in the Harz, and the Upper Harz Water Management System can also boast the title.
The Fagus Factory in Alfeld, Lower Saxony, designed in 1911 by architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, has been on the World Heritage list since 2011.