A total of 25 sites of "outstanding" major natural or cultural importance have been given World Heritage Site status over the past week, dpa quoted the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as saying Tuesday. The additions, decided by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, brings to 936 the number of sites in 153 countries that have the designation. Three of the new sites are natural sites: the Ningaloo Coast, a massive area of reefs and caves on the remote western coast of Australia, the Kenya lake system in the Great Rift Valley and Japan's Ogasawara Islands. A further 21 sites were chosen for their cultural associations, ranging from prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps to a collection of 1st to 7th century villages in north-west Syria and the Fagus shoe factory in northern Germany, built by the founder of the modernist Bauhaus movement, Walter Gropius. The Wadi Rum, a 74,000-hectare area of desert landscapes in southern Jordan, was the only addition that ticked both natural and cultural boxes. The World Heritage Site designation is highly sought after and seen as a draw for tourism. Each year the World Heritage Committee of experts meet in Paris to discuss new submissions and review threats to existing sites. Two properties were added to the list of endangered World Heritage Sites - the Rيo Plلtano in Honduras, one of the few remaining tropical rainforest in Central America and the tropical rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. Manas wildlife sanctuary at the foot of the Himalayas in India was removed from the "sites in danger" list.
