In what I hope will become a half-yearly tradition, I am presenting to you the highlights of the new crop of Tentative Sites that have been submitted in the second half of 2025. The first 6 months were covered here.

Keeping the Tentative Lists on this website up-to-date is important to me: there is no other independent place on the web that does so. Even on the UNESCO website, the topic is covered quite poorly, with no tracing of the lifecycle of the sites, no photos and no maps or validation of geodata (all of which we aim to provide).

The Numbers

2025 has ended with 1807 Tentative Sites (TWHS). In the second half of 2025, 49 were added. 12 of those were replacements of earlier ones. Only 1 TWHS was fully removed and became a Former TWHS (European Paper Mills, Italy).

As with the first half of 2025, the number of new sites listed is significantly above average.

It is hard to keep a perfect track of the numbers, since the UNESCO Bureau often adds sites retrospectively. Last week, even a 2024 listing appeared (the French Beech Forests, probably it had been on hold until their Serbian and Montenegrin counterparts were ready to publish).

In total, 2025 saw 130 new entries and the net result was 51 (as known at the time of writing, January 16, 2026). The trend over the 10 previous years was that an average of 66 new TWHS were added yearly, with a net result of 30; 66 were added, 14 removed, and 22 were inscribed and thus disappeared from the Tentative List as well.

Full make-overs

The following countries did a major update of their Tentative Lists:

• Malawi: a refreshed list of 7, including 4 that had been there before.
• Kazakhstan: 6 new ones, including a reformulation of previously separate petroglyph nominations into larger serial properties.
• Yemen: a new List of 31, already covered in this separate blog post (submitted in June, it was published by UNESCO retrospectively in July)

India did not do a true makeover, but added another 7 to get to 69 TWHS in total. It now ranks second in the list of Countries with the most TWHS, after Turkiye with 79.

Brazil did a clean-up, removing 5 double ones that were still lingering on the T List while already inscribed, such as Anavilhanas Ecological Station and Atol das Rocas.

Notable individual new entries

The Award for the Best name has to go to: Monumental Monuments and Sanctuaries of the Early Steppe Tradition of Central Eurasia (Mausoleum of Kozy-Korpesh–Bayan Sulu, Ritual Structure Dombauyl, and related “Dyng” Towers) (Kazakhstan). I went with "Monuments and Sanctuaries of the Early Steppe" as the short name to show on the website. At least we can be glad that only the monumental monuments have been included.

And Kazakhstan is so keen to get the Ascension Cathedral in Almaty inscribed, they made it part of two new TWHS within half a year: the Sacred Timber Architecture of Central Asia and The Anti-seismic Heritage of Almaty.

A surprise was the resurfacing of "left-over" Beech Forests. The selected forests in France, Serbia, and Montenegro were deferred at the inscription of the main Beech Forests set in 2021. The ones in France and Serbia even had to be "awakened from the death" as they already had been fully removed and thus demoted to the status of Former TWHS.

Among the more imaginative new entries are:

• Gonarezhou National Park: a classy park in Zimbabwe, known for its true wild feel.
• Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow: for those who would like to see more Soviet architecture on the list. We flagged the topic already in 2016 as a gap.
• Sri Lanka's Tea Cultural Landscape (main header photo): an all-encompassing proposal comprising 26 components, from Tea Estates to Cricket Clubs.
• Bobrka oil field: the First Modern Oil Mine, the first place of oil extraction on an industrial scale (established in 1854).

Looking at the list of sites added in H2 2025, are there any Tentative Sites that stand out for you?

One of the neat statistics we gather via community members on this website is the visitor rating of a WHS. After you have visited a site, you can give it a rating of 1 to 5 stars. The rating represents a mix of “WHS worthiness” and your experience on the day. If you have not rated anything so far, log in to your profile and go to Rate WHS to contribute.

While these ratings help to find the best WHS, they of course also provide insight into the worst!

The Worst 10

At the time of writing, we have 49 WHS with a weighted average score below 2 stars. You can find them at the WHS Index page, and sort by Score.

The worst-rated 10 are:

1. Tugay forests (0.38)
2. Kazan Federal University Observatories (1.01)
3. Valongo Wharf (1.17)
4. Al-Faw (1.29)
5. Battir (1.38)
6. Srebarna Nature Reserve (1.38)
7. Kuk (1.46)
8. Melka Kunture and Balchit (1.47)
9. Chongoni Rock Art (1.49)
10. The Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley (1.52)

When this selection is adjusted to WHS that got 5 votes or more, to exclude individual voices counting too strongly, the top-10 is:

1. Kazan Federal University Observatories (1.01)
2. Valongo Wharf (1.17)
3. Battir (1.38)
4. Srebarna Nature Reserve (1.38)
5. Melka Kunture and Balchit (1.47)
6. Chongoni Rock Art (1.49)
7. The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa (1.59)
8. FRIM Selangor (1.65)
9. Jodensavanne (1.65)
10. Santiniketan (1.65)

The list of 49 includes 39 cultural WHS, 9 natural WHS, and 1 mixed WHS. The average year of inscription is 2012. Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands and South Africa are all countries represented with more than 1 site (all have 2, except for South Africa, which has 3).

Common Denominators

"Invisible" Heritage

The biggest cluster comprises the sites where there is little or nothing “to see”: WHS that are visually underwhelming. It seems that we expect monumentality and our brain simply cannot match the story (which you really have to bring with you by studying beforehand or hiring a guide) with scarce or no remains.

The Early Hominid Sites in general are a poor category in that respect, and it is represented with 4 WHS among the worst 49. Valongo Warf and the Lower German Limes are also notorious cases, as are Beemster Polder, Kuk and the Vredefort Dome.

Sites that are poorly understood

“To see the Tugay forests, one often has to navigate permits, border zones, and extreme heat (Tigrovaya Balka is one of the hottest places in Central Asia), only to find a landscape that—while ecologically unique—looks like dense, scrubby brush to the untrained eye.” (Google Gemini's explanation for Tugay's low rating)

Sites listed among the “worst” aren’t by definition poor WHS. Sometimes they just need more effort and/or more study (to train the eye!) before a visit:

• Some ratings reflect the limited footprint the members have left at the site: they’ve looked at it from behind a fence, did not really get inside and for sure have not seen its OUV. Al Faw is a notorious case: it’s a site that to date cannot be visited. Places like Santiniketan and FRIM only get higher rates when a member has gained some sort of exclusive access – for a casual visitor, they’re frustrating sites.
• WHS that have been visited before inscription and where the narrative isn't obvious, also tend to be rated lowly.
• Community members also seem to struggle with the built aspects of African cultural heritage, looking at the inclusion of Thimlich Ohinga, Asante Traditional Buildings, and Tombs of Buganda Kings among the worst 49.

Sites with questionable OUV

Members are also harsh in their judgments when they believe a site has no OUV. It may explain the low score of the Kazan Federal University Observatories, although without reviews to date, we can't say for sure. The sites that sneaked into the List for political reasons or excessive lobbying, like Battir, find few supporters. Or those that could just have been an extension of an existing WHS, such as the Mandela Legacy Sites. Or with an unsatisfactory scope, such as the Trans-Iranian Railway.

Sites in a poor condition

When all you encounter is neglect, it will be hard to appreciate a site. This has long been the case for Abu Mena and Srebarna, for example. However, both WHS have recently improved according to the latest reviews. It will probably be the explanation for the low score of Port Royal as well, although its Fort Charles accommodates visitors well.

A few outliers

For some WHS, I was surprised to see them among the 49. Such as Chongoni Rock Art, one of only two rock art sites listed here among the many rock art WHS (the other is the Bangucheon Petroglyphs). Is it so much worse than the others? The simplicity of the design of the paintings may have worked against it.

The list of the worst WHS does not hold many natural WHS. Among those, a few West African parks (Comoé, W-Arli-Pendjari, Gola-Tiwai) stand out negatively.