Six sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and the South Pacific nation of Kiribati won World Heritage status Sunday from a UNESCO panel meeting in Brazil. Four existing World Heritage sites were also expanded to include nearby natural or cultural treasures in Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain, the UN cultural agency said in a statement. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, in a 10-day meeting in Brasilia that will wrap up Tuesday, has already added or extended 17 other sites to its list, bringing the total number of sites around the world with the prestigious stamp to 910. Saturday, the UNESCO committee announced heritage labels for an imperial palace in Vietnam, temples in China, an Australian penal colony, a historic bazaar in Iran, 14th-century villages in South Korea, an 18th-century astronomical observatory in India, Sri Lanka's Central Highlands region, and the United States' Papahanaumokuakea archipelago. The latest additions comprised three culturally important sites and three environmentally unique ones. Sao Francisco Square in the northeastern town of Sao Cristovao was designated a World Heritage site because of a church and convent there, and a palace and associated houses, all from the 18th and 19th centuries that “creates an urban landscape which reflects the history of the town since its origin.” China's Danxia, or rugged red landscapes that emerged from river silt deposits in southwest China, were added because of their role in preserving subtropical forests and hosting flora and fauna, including 400 considered rare or threatened. Mexico had two sites inscribed. The first, the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or the Royal Inland Road, which was a route that runs from north of Mexico City into the United States, was used to transport silver from mines for 300 years from the 16th century. The second was a complex of prehistoric caves in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, some of which bear “archeological and rock-art evidence for the progress of nomadic hunter-gathers to incipient farmers.” France's Reunion Island, in the Indian Ocean, gained its first World Heritage site within its national park. Kiribati's Phoenix Islands, a zone that is the largest marine protected area in the world, also won heritage endorsement. The island group “conserves one of the world's largest intact oceanic coral archipelago ecosystems, together with 14 known underwater sea mounts” thought to be extinct volcanoes, complete with a staggering variety of marine species.
