World Heritage Sites Trivia
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49 free World Heritage Sites trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
UNESCO's World Heritage List began with a dozen places in 1978 and now runs to more than a thousand, from rock-cut churches and salt mines to reefs, deltas and whole city centres. Every entry has a story: a nomination that stalled for decades, a bridge or stadium that cost a city its status, a rescue campaign that started the whole idea. This quiz covers how the list works, the rules behind the selection criteria and the danger list, the original sites of 1978, the handful of places ever removed, and the famous temples, parks and monuments most travellers can picture but rarely know the history of. It also marks World Heritage Day, the date set aside each year for monuments and sites. It suits pub quiz hosts, teachers marking World Heritage Day, and anyone planning a trip with a list to tick off. Fifty questions, each with an explanation and a source.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city did UNESCO's General Conference adopt the World Heritage Convention in November 1972?
Paris
Paris, home of UNESCO's headquarters, hosted the vote on 16 November 1972; the idea grew out of the 1960s campaign that moved Abu Simbel's temples clear of the rising Nile.
Q 02Which sovereign state had its entire territory inscribed as a single World Heritage Site in 1984?
Vatican City
Vatican City's whole territory went onto the list in 1984. It is also on the International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection, which gives it legal protection in armed conflict.
Q 03Which English port city was struck off the list in 2021 after approving a football stadium in its historic docks?
Liverpool
Liverpool became only the third site ever removed, on 21 July 2021, months after Everton's new stadium was approved for Bramley-Moore Dock. The committee had warned in 2017 that the Liverpool Waters scheme put the listing at risk.
Q 04Which Australian site escaped the danger list in 2021 after its government lobbied against UNESCO's climate assessment?
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef was judged 'clearly in danger from climate change' by UNESCO, yet the committee of diplomats ignored that advice in July 2021. Australia had earlier had the reef cut from a 2016 UNESCO report on tourism and climate.
Q 05Which Peruvian site, listed for both nature and culture, nearly joined the danger list in 2017 over overcrowding?
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is both a cultural and a natural World Heritage Site, and in 2017 UNESCO considered listing it in danger before deciding against it. Its 1983 inscription covers the surrounding landscape as well as the ruins.
Q 06Which temple complex, inscribed in 1992 while a UN mission ran Cambodia, went straight onto the danger list?
Angkor
Angkor was listed and placed in danger on the same occasion so urgent conservation could begin, and it came off the danger list in 2004. The listing came under the UN mission set up by the 1991 peace agreements.
Q 07Which US park, one of the first twelve sites inscribed in 1978, spent 1995 to 2003 on the danger list?
Yellowstone
Yellowstone went on the danger list over threats that included proposed mining near the park, sewage leaks and a plan to wipe out brucellosis in its bison; it is widely held to be the world's first national park.
Q 08Which Irish island monastery, inscribed in 1996, stood in for the planet Ahch-To in Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael was filmed as Ahch-To for The Force Awakens in 2015 and The Last Jedi in 2017. Its monks eventually left the rock; colder, stormier weather and Viking raids are among the reasons suggested.
Q 09Which Afghan valley was inscribed in 2003, two years after the Taliban destroyed its two giant Buddha statues?
Bamiyan
Bamiyan's two standing Buddhas, carved into a cliff face, were blown up in March 2001 on the orders of Taliban leader Mullah Omar; the valley went straight onto the danger list when it was inscribed.
Q 10Which Gulf state had the first site ever struck off the list, in 2007, after cutting an oryx sanctuary by 90%?
Oman
Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was removed on 28 June 2007 after oil was found there, with the oryx population down from 450 in 1996 to 65. It was delisted outright rather than first being placed in danger.
Q 11Which German city lost its Elbe Valley listing in 2009 for building a four-lane road bridge across the protected valley?
Dresden
Dresden's Waldschlösschen Bridge cost the valley its status in a 14 to 5 committee vote in June 2009, after three years on the danger list. Opponents fought the bridge through the courts and lost.
Q 12Which 20th-century landmark joined the World Heritage List in 2007 while its architect was still alive?
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House was inscribed a year before the death of its Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, who had resigned from the project in 1966 and never returned to Australia to see it finished.
Q 13UNESCO's first selection criterion asks a site to represent a masterpiece of what?
Q 21Which Ethiopian town's eleven rock-hewn churches were declared a World Heritage Site in the first group of 1978?
Lalibela
Lalibela's 11 churches are grouped by UNESCO into four clusters, among them Biete Medhane Alem, home of the Lalibela Cross. They were carved downward into the bedrock rather than built up.
Q 22Which island off Dakar, site of the House of Slaves memorial, was among the first twelve places inscribed in 1978?
Gorée
Gorée's House of Slaves, a museum since 1962, is said to mark the last exit point of captives from Africa; historians argue that few actually passed through its Door of No Return, yet it remains a place of remembrance.
Q 23Which park, Colorado's only World Heritage Site as of 2026, was in the original group inscribed in 1978?
Mesa Verde
Human creative genius
Human creative genius is criterion (i) of ten; until 2005 cultural and natural sites were judged against separate lists, and a site still needs to meet only one criterion to qualify.
Q 14What document must a country add a site to before it is allowed to nominate that site for inscription?
Tentative List
The Tentative List is each country's own inventory of candidates, and a site missing from it cannot be nominated at all. Even a major boundary change must go back through it as if it were a new nomination.
Q 15What three-word quality must a nominated site show, in addition to meeting at least one of the selection criteria?
Outstanding Universal Value
Outstanding Universal Value, OUV in committee papers, is what every listed site must show; a site judged to have lost it can be struck off the list, which had happened only three times by 2026.
Q 16Which archipelago, one of the first twelve sites of 1978, carries reference number 1 on the World Heritage List?
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands hold reference number 1; the listing was enlarged in 2001 to take in the surrounding marine reserve, and the islands spent 2007 to 2010 on the danger list.
Q 17Which advisory body proposed the International Day for Monuments and Sites, also known as World Heritage Day, in 1982?
ICOMOS
ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, proposed the day on 18 April 1982 and UNESCO approved it the following year; the council also assesses cultural nominations for the committee.
Q 18Which Florida park went back on the danger list in 2010, its second spell after one from 1993 to 2007?
Everglades
Everglades National Park first went on the danger list after Hurricane Andrew and years of declining water flow; it came off in 2007 and went back on in 2010 as its marine habitat kept degrading.
Q 19Which cathedral, begun around 796 as Charlemagne's palace chapel, was among the first twelve sites inscribed in 1978?
Aachen
Aachen Cathedral holds Charlemagne's tomb: he was buried in his Palatine Chapel in 814, and from 936 to 1531 thirty-one German kings came there to be crowned.
Q 20Which Polish mine, with four chapels carved from rock salt by its miners, was on the original 1978 list?
Wieliczka
Wieliczka Salt Mine was on the original 1978 list and spent 1989 to 1998 on the danger list while a humidity problem underground was brought under control.
Mesa Verde was made a national park by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to 'preserve the works of man', the first US park created to protect a cultural site rather than scenery; as of 2026 it is still Colorado's only entry.
Q 24Which holy city's walled Old City was nominated by Jordan and placed on the danger list in 1982?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem's Old City and its walls were inscribed in 1981 on Jordan's proposal and listed in danger a year later; UNESCO files the site under no country, noting only that Jordan proposed it.
Q 25Which inland delta, whose waters never reach the sea, became the 1,000th site inscribed on the list in 2014?
Okavango
The Okavango Delta reached the milestone on 22 June 2014, as one of the few interior delta systems whose wetland is still largely intact. Its floods arrive in the dry season.
Q 26Which New Zealand park was the first place inscribed as a cultural landscape, for its spiritual meaning to Māori?
Tongariro
Tongariro was listed for its natural features in 1990 and as a cultural landscape in 1993; its sacred peaks had been given to the Crown in 1887 by the Ngāti Tūwharetoa chief Te Heuheu, on condition that they be protected.
Q 27Which purpose-built capital was inscribed in 1987, barely 27 years after it was inaugurated?
Brasília
Brasília was listed for its modernist architecture and artistic urban planning only 27 years after its inauguration on 21 April 1960. The whole city went up in 41 months.
Q 28Which architect's 17 buildings across seven countries were inscribed together as a single site in 2016?
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier's listing was approved at the 2016 committee session in Istanbul and takes in the Capitol Complex in Chandigarh. Earlier versions of the nomination had been cut back before it succeeded.
Q 29Which American architect's eight buildings in six states were inscribed as a single site in 2019?
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright's eight buildings, among them Fallingwater and New York's Guggenheim Museum, were chosen to show his 'organic architecture', whose open plans and blurring of indoors and outdoors shaped modern design in Europe too.
Q 30Which volcano was inscribed in 2013 as a cultural site, a 'sacred place and source of artistic inspiration'?
Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji's summit has been thought sacred since ancient times and was closed to women until 1872; Mount Etna joined the list in the same year, but as a natural site.