Blog Connections
Connected
Since introducing the Connections feature, 1531 connections with 27,141 connected sites have been added to this website. I was inspired by Jurre, who has so diligently inventoried connections for Italian WHS recently at the Forum, to discover what the amount of connections tells us about a WHS. To support this research, I made a new Ranking page called Connected that shows the number of connections each WHS has.
Best connected
It comes as no surprise that the large city centers with a long history dominate the Top 10 of WHS with the most connections:
Ferrara may be the odd one out, but its high ranking can be explained by the inclusion of the Po Delta with the city center of Ferrara.
Fewest connections
When we look at the 120 WHS with less than 10 connections, the following categories stand out:
Recent WHS
No less than 26 WHS from 2023 haven’t reached the 10 connections yet. The Viking Age Ring Fortresses only has 2!
This may teach us that the number of connections for a site grows over time. Or we should try harder directly after a WHC – maybe last year we were a bit overwhelmed by the high numbers getting in at the double session. For example, the similar double session of 2021 has only 3 WHS left with less than 10 connections.
Old WHS with little documentation
During the early years, WHS were added without much documentation. One would expect that finding connections for these WHS would be difficult, but overall this is not strongly reflected in the numbers. There are a few early sites such as the Boyana Church, the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo (photo) and the Urnes Stave Church which could benefit from a better description. Vernacular and/or rural churches like these 3 do quite poorly overall by the way, with also Vall de Boi, Pskov Churches and the Wooden Churches of the Maramures in very low numbers.
Oddities – or just very unique
When I started to look at the WHS with very few connections, I was hoping to find the WHS that are so unique that they are hard to connect to 2 other WHS. The Grimeton Radio Station surely is such a site, or the Four Lifts.
Also, ‘mysterious’ sites where the use/meaning is unknown and which cannot be linked to a major culture prove hard to connect: think of the Plain of Jars, Tiya, the Madara Rider.
Poorly rated sites
A final hypothesis was that sites with poor ratings have a low number of connections. Especially the more simple ones (where there isn't much to see), such as the Chengjiang Fossil Site or the Sangiran Early Man Site, indeed do have less than 10 connections. But we also find Khajuraho and Ajanta Caves in that category, two majestic sites. Looking at the full list though, I'd say that overall the "better" sites get more connections (although the poorly rated variations of Limes are always good for above-average numbers of connections).
Are there any (groups of) WHS that do stand out to you when you look at the list of most and least connected sites?
Els - 14 July 2024
Comments
Jakob Frenzel 16 July 2024
In my opionion the delisted WHS should be included in the list as well. First of all, all information which is gathered for the connections might become obsolete If a site os being delisted, secondly the connection "Site has been delisted or major parts were excluded" would make a perfect connection at its own: Dresden, Oryx, Liverpool, Bagrati Monastery.
I would be in favor of putting them back in
Kyle Magnuson 15 July 2024
My count is about 120 WHS with less than 10 Connections. Some of these (about 40) are recent inscriptions in the last 5 years. Around 15 WHS have relatively high ratings (3.5 or higher). Perhaps a community effort to explore connections with these 120 sites?