World Heritage Sites

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Abstract

Land’s many different aspects have produces a landscape of diversity, a tapestry of countless features. The 13 sites described in the map are Canada’s contribution to the distinguished list – a combination of national, provincial parks, and historic settings deemed by the World Heritage Committee to number among the most significant sites on Earth.

As of mid-2000, there are 630 natural and human-made wonders like these on UNESCO's World Heritage List, places whose loss would impoverish humankind.

The sites are so significant that responsibility for their protection belongs not just to their host states, but to the world. And it is up to the world to see they are preserved. That is the philosophy behind the World Heritage Convention, an agreement signed more than 25 years ago that is today among the United Nations' most successful initiatives. Sites in more than 115 countries have been accorded the recognition and protection of World Heritage status, bringing them to the attention of the international community and promoting their preservation in the face of ever-increasing population, pollution and commercial development.

The 13 sites described here are Canada's contribution to this distinguished list - a combination of national and provincial parks and historic settings deemed by the World Heritage Committee to number among the most significant sites on Earth. Thus Canada has representative sites of the two categories used by UNESCO: cultural and natural areas.