World heritage sites

2. At the moment there
are more than 460
world heritage sites
around the world from
Albania to Zimbabwe.
Some sites are man-
made such as the old
city of Quito to
Ecuador, other sites
are natural such as
the Los Glaciares
National Park in
Argentina. However,
every site is important
because every site is
a part of everyone’s
past or present. Every
site is a part of
everyone’s future.
Ac. tholos. Greece
Geghard Monastery. ArmeniaSt. Petersburg. Russia
Sanchi. India
Ksar of Benhaddou. Marocco.
Stature of Liberty. USA

3. Our children and grandchildren may not
have a chance to visit many of the most
famous places around the world. War,
weather, age, traffic and pollution damage
these famous places. There is a need for
construct renovation. But looking after
these places often costs more than one
country can afford.

4. In the early 1970s, world governments decided
that if they joined together, they would be able to
preserve our history. If every country paid some
money, they said, it would be possible to look
after important historic places. Also, if they
discovered that a monument needed urgent help,
they would have money for repairs. For these
reasons, countries around the world united to form
The World Heritage Organisation in 1972. Today,
the organisation helps to maintain and restore the
most important places from our history.
• The international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO
World Heritage Committee.
• The programme aims to catalogue, name, and conserve sites of outstanding
cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of mankind.
• Each World Heritage Site is the property of the country on whose territory the
site is located, but it is considered in the interest of the international community
to preserve each site for future generations of humanity.
• As of 2006, a total of 830 sites are listed: 644 cultural, 162 natural, and 24
mixed properties, in 138 States Parties.

5. • People sometimes enter the sites and destroy or damage the
buildings. At some sites, such as Stonehenge, governments have
built high fences to protect the site from vandals.
• There are many different ideas about how to solve the problem of
vandalism. Some experts say that if guards patrolled the sites,
vandals wouldn’t be able to get in. Other experts say that if they
installed more television cameras, they wouldn’t need so many
guards.
• Other experts say that the best solution is education. If people
learned to respect history, they wouldn’t destroy or damage it. They
would also want to spend money to look after old places. For this
reason, The World Heritage Organization helps to spread
information about the value of historic sites.
Which of this ideas does the text mention?Which of this ideas does the text mention?
- building high fence - installing TV cameras
- using guard - paying entrance
fees
- reducing pollution - removing the valuable
items
- closing the sites - educating people

6. • People sometimes enter the sites and destroy or damage the
buildings. At some sites, such as Stonehenge, governments have
built high fences to protect the site from vandals.
• There are many different ideas about how to solve the problem of
vandalism. Some experts say that if guards patrolled the sites,
vandals wouldn’t be able to get in. Other experts say that if they
installed more television cameras, they wouldn’t need so many
guards.
• Other experts say that the best solution is education. If people
learned to respect history, they wouldn’t destroy or damage it. They
would also want to spend money to look after old places. For this
reason, The World Heritage Organization helps to spread
information about the value of historic sites.
Which of this ideas does the text mention?Which of this ideas does the text mention?
- building high fence - installing TV cameras
- using guard - paying entrance
fees
- reducing pollution - removing the valuable
items
- closing the sites - educating people

7. Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest national park in
Canada at 44,807 km². The park was established in 1922
to protect the world's largest herd of free roaming Wood
Bison, currently estimated at more than 2,000. Wood
Buffalo National Park contains a large variety of wildlife
species, such as moose, black bear, wolf, lynx, brown
bear, snowshoe hare, sandhill crane, Wood Buffalo, ruffed
grouse, and the garter snake, which form famous
communal dens within the park. It is the only known
nesting site of whooping cranes.
Gros Beak Lake Fort Smith Nashornpelikane

8. Grand Canyon National Park is one of the
United States' oldest national parks and is
considered to be one of the major natural
wonders of the world. The park covers
4927 km². The Grand Canyon itself,
including its extensive system of tributary
canyons, is neither the largest nor deepest
canyon in the world, but it is valued for the
spectacular combination of large size,
depth, and the exposed layering of colorful
rocks dating back to Precambrian times.

9. Chichen Itza is a large archaeological site built by
the Maya civilization, located in Mexico. The site
exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, from
what is called “Mexicanized”. Archaeological
data, such as evidence of burning at a number of
important structures and architectural complexes,
suggest that Chichen Itza's collapse was violent.
Following the decline of Chichen Itza's
hegemony, regional power in the Yucatán shifted
to a new center at Mayapan.
Head of serpent column
Templo de los Guerreros

10. The Galapagos Islands are 1,100 km west of
Ecuador. There are many species of reptiles, birds
and plants which are only found here. These animals
survived on the island because they were isolated
from dangerous animals, disease and people. The
islands are famous for the huge tortoises. They can
live for about 100 years and can weight about 270
km. Some tortoises were taken off the island for
zoos or private collections. But now, they and their
home are protected.

11. Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras. It is the site of a major Maya
kingdom of the Classic era. The kingdom flourished from the 5th
century AD to
the early 9th
century. The site in Copan is best known for producing a remarkable
series of portrait stelae, most of which were placed along processional ways in
the central plaza of the city and the adjoining "acropolis" (a large complex of
overlapping step-pyramids, plazas, and palaces). Although this large ruined city
was known locally since early colonial times, it remained largely unknown by the
outside world until a series of explorers visited it in the early 19th
century.
Archeologists have consolidated and restored many structures at the site.
Copan Ruins

12. Easter Island is in the south Pacific, 3,700 km from
coast of Chile. On the island, there are 600 large
statures. We don’t know who built them but they
were probably constructed between 1150 and
1500. We don’t really know why they are there.
Archaeologists think that the statures represent
dead tribal leaders. There are many unanswered
questions about Easter Island.

13. Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian city created by the
Inca. It is above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Machu
Picchu was constructed around 1450. The primary
archaeological treasures are the Intihuatana, the
Temple of the Sun and the Room of the Three
Windows. These were dedicated to Inti, their sun god
and greatest deity. The Intihuatana is believed to have
been designed as an astronomic clock by the Incas.
Solar Clock Temple of the Sun

14. Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is a national park
in Argentina. It comprises an area of 4459 km² .
Its name refers to the giant Ice Cap (the biggest
outside Antarctica and Greenland) in the Andes
range that feeds 47 large glaciers, of which only
13 flow towards the Atlantic Ocean. In other
parts of the world, glaciers start at a height of at
least 2,500 meters above mean sea level, but
due to the size of the Ice Cap, these glaciers
begin at only 1,500 m, sliding down to 200 m
AMSL, eroding the surface of the mountains that
support them.

15. The Giant’s Causeway is in North Island, UK. It is
one of the strange formations in the world. Local
people say that it was built by an enormous giant
Finn MacCool for his girlfriend to walk to him
across the sea without getting wet. Geologists
say that the causeway was made about 60 million
years ago from lava. The columns of the
causeway all have a very similar pattern. After the
lava cooled, it was shaped by the sea and
glaciers. Every minute and every day the process
continues.

16. Stonehenge is a monument located in the UK, on
Salisbury Plane. One of the most famous
prehistoric sites in the world, Stonehenge is
composed of earthworks surrounding a circular
setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists
believe the standing stones were erected around
3200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank
and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of
the monument, have been dated to about 310
BC.
Heelstone

17. Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt from its
foundation until around 1300 BC. The name
"Memphis" is the Greek deformation of the
Egyptian name of Pepi I's pyramid. The great
pyramids of Giza were built around 2700-2500
BC as tombs for the pharaohs. The Great
Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) is the largest, it
covers 13 acres and stands about 137 m high. It
was constructed of around 2.3 million stones and
each of the stones weigh from 2 to 30 tons each.
Located in Giza on the west bank of the Nile
River, near Cairo, the pyramids remain one of
the engineering marvels of all time.

18. Victoria Falls are shared between Zambia and
Zimbabwe. The falls are the largest waterfall on
the planet, as well as being among the most
unusual in form, and having arguably the most
diverse and easily-seen wildlife of any major
waterfall site. At the Victoria Falls the blue
Zambezi River, about 2 km wide, suddenly falls
down for over a hundred metres. Many of
Africa's animals and birds can be seen in the
immediate vicinity of Victoria Falls, and the
continent's range of river fish is also well
represented in the Zambezi.

19. In 1871 Karl Mauch, a German, discovered huge
stone walls in Zimbabwe. The Walls covered 25
hectares around what is now called ‘Great
Zimbabwe’. It is the most impressive Iron Age site in
Africa. On top of a hill, there is a large castle and
underneath this is the ‘Great Enclosure’. The Great
Enclosure has enormous walls – sometimes 11 m
high and 1.2 m thick. Inside it there are many huts,
rooms and a mysterious 9-metre-high stone tower
that has no stairs, no windows and no doors. Why
did they build the tower? Great archaeologists think
the Great Enclosure was built about 1,000 years ago.

20. Bassae, meaning "little vale in the rocks" is an
archaeological site. It is famous for the well-
preserved mid-5th century BCE Temple of
Apollo Epikourios. Although this temple is
geographically remote, it is one of the most
studied ancient Greek temples because of
its multitude of unusual features. The
temple's remoteness has worked to its
advantage for its preservation. Due to its
distance from major metropolitan areas it
also has less of a problem with acid rain.
The temple of Apollo is presently covered in
white tent with five rows in order to protect
the ruins from the elements. MetopeBassae Fragment

21. The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian
monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox
Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad.
The monastery was founded in 1345 by one of the most venerated
Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church
in honour of the Holy Trinity at the Makovets Hill. After the Russian
Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in
1920. The Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in
1945. In 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption
Cathedral. Now the monastery is a prime centre of religious
education.
Assumption
Cathedral
Duck Tower

22. Petra is an archaeological site in Jordan,
the large valley running from the Dead
Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is famous for
having many stone structures carved into
the rock. It was famously described as "a
rose-red city half as old as time" in a
Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John
William Burgon.
Petra Monastery
Amphitheatre

23. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India. The
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it as a
mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
Construction began in 1632 and was completed in
approximately 1648. Some dispute surrounds the question
of who designed the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal (sometimes
called "the Taj") is generally considered the finest example
of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements of
Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. It
was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 when
it was described as a "universally admired masterpiece of
the world's heritage.
Her last wish to her husband was "to build a tomb in her memory such as the world had never seen before".

24. The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and
earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and
maintained between the 5th
century BC and the
16th
century to protect the northern borders of
the Chinese Empire during the rule of
successive dynasties. The Great Wall is one of
the existing mega structures and the world's
longest human-made structure, stretching over
approximately 6,400 km It is also the largest
human-made structure ever built in terms of
surface area and mass.

25. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the world's
largest coral reef system, composed of roughly 3,000
individual reefs and 900 islands that cover an area of
approximately 344,400 A coral is a tiny marine polyp.
A coral reef is a natural barrier made of bodies of
living and dead coral. It is just below the surface of
the water. It is the home for 1500 species of fish, 400
types of coral, 500 species of seaweed, 215 species
of birds, 16 species of sea snake, 6 species of sea
turtle.

26. Tongariro is the first national park in New
Zealand and the fourth in the world. It is also
a dual World Heritage area, a status which
recognizes the park's important Maori cultural
and spiritual associations as well as its
outstanding volcanic features. It is a place of
extremes and surprises, a place to explore
and remember. From herb fields to forests,
from tranquil lakes to desert-like plateau and
active volcanoes - Tongariro has them all.
Vegetation
Emerald Lakes
Great Volcanoes

27. • Listen. One of the monument is talking about
the problems it has had. Which monument is it?
• Listen again. Which of this problems does it
mention?
traffic fumestraffic fumes warswars
graffitigraffiti earthquakes and volcanoesearthquakes and volcanoes
floodsfloods heavy lorries and coachesheavy lorries and coaches
snow and icesnow and ice people’s feetpeople’s feet

28. • StonehengeStonehenge
• traffic fumestraffic fumes warswars
graffitigraffiti heavy lorries and coachesheavy lorries and coaches
snow and icesnow and ice