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UNESCO inscribed several new sites on its World Heritage List at the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea.
France's D-Day Landing Beaches in Normandy and Greece's Mount Olympus were among the additions.
About 25 new cultural and natural sites were added in July 2026.
Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, and South Sudan got their first-ever World Heritage sites.
India's Sarnath was inscribed at the same session.
UNESCO inscribes sites under the 1972 World Heritage Convention if they show Outstanding Universal Value. Sites can be cultural (like the D-Day beaches, valued for history), natural (valued for ecology or geology), or 'mixed' — meeting both criteria. Mount Olympus qualified as a mixed site: culturally, as the mythological home of the Greek gods, and naturally, for its biodiversity and dramatic landscape. Decisions are taken by the 21-member World Heritage Committee at its annual session.
Simple Analogy: A mixed site is one that earns its place on both counts at once — for what happened there and for the nature it holds.
GS Paper 1 > World Heritage and Culture; GS Paper 2 > International Bodies
General Awareness > World Geography and Current Affairs
A site inscribed for both cultural and natural Outstanding Universal Value.
The 21-member body that decides inscriptions at its annual session.