World Heritage Committee - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The World Heritage Committee establishes the sites to be listed as UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

s. It is responsible for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, defines the use of the World Heritage Fund and allocates financial assistance upon requests from States Parties. It is composed of 21 state parties

Sovereign state

A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...

which are elected by the General Assembly of States Parties for a four-year term.

According to the World Heritage Convention, a committee member's term of office is for six years, however many states parties choose voluntarily to be Members of the Committee for only four years, in order to give other states parties an opportunity to be on the committee. For instance, all members elected at the 15th General Assembly (2005) have voluntarily decided to reduce their period of term of office from six to four years.

World Heritage Marine Programme

Launched in 2005, the World Heritage Marine Programme promotes conservation of marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

areas. The program focuses on strengthening the credibility of the World Heritage List, conservation and capacity building for World Heritage marine sites and communication and outreach about the World Heritage Convention as an instrument for marine conservation. Currently there are 43 sites worldwide on the list including Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world'slargest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...

and Galapagos Islands

Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...

Session

The World Heritage Committee meets many times a year to discuss the management of existing World Heritage Sites, and accept the nominations from countries. A session, known as the World Heritage Committee Session, takes place annually where sites are inscribed on the World Heritage List, after presentations made by the IUCN and/or ICOMOS, and deliberations made among the state parties.they meet once a year.

The annual session takes place in cities all over the world. With the exception of those held in Paris, where the UNESCO headquarter office is located, only state parties who are members of the World Heritage Committee have the right to host a future Session, pending approval by the Committee, as well as provided that the concerned State Party's term will not expire before it hosts the Session.

Session	Year	Date	Host city	State party
1	1977	27 June–1 July	Paris	Early Modern France
2	1978	5 September–8 September	Washington, D.C.	United States
3	1979	22 October–26 October	Cairo Cairo Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life... & Luxor Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...	Egypt
4	1980	1 September–5 September	Paris	Early Modern France
5	1981	26 October–30 October	Sydney Sydney Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...	Australia
6	1982	13 December–17 December	Paris	Early Modern France
7	1983	5 December–9 December	Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....	Italy
8	1984	29 October–2 November	Buenos Aires Buenos Aires Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...	Argentina
9	1985	2 December–6 December	Paris	Early Modern France
10	1986	24 November–28 November	Paris	Early Modern France
11	1987	7 December–11 December	Paris	Early Modern France
12	1988	5 December–9 December	Brasilia Brasília Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...	Brazil
13	1989	11 December–15 December	Paris	Early Modern France
14	1990	7 December–12 December	Banff Banff, Alberta Banff is a town within Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. It is located in Alberta's Rockies along the Trans-Canada Highway, approximately west of Calgary and east of Lake Louise....	Canada
15	1991	9 December–13 December	Carthage Carthage Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...	Tunisia
16	1992	7 December–14 December	Santa Fe Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...	United States
17	1993	6 December–11 December	Cartagena Cartagena, Colombia Cartagena de Indias , is a large Caribbean beach resort city on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region and capital of Bolívar Department...	Colombia
18	1994	12 December–17 December	Phuket Phuket Province Phuket , formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon , is one of the southern provinces of Thailand...	Thailand
19	1995	4 December–9 December	Berlin	Germany
20	1996	2 December–7 December	Mérida Mérida, Yucatán Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...	Mexico
21	1997	1 December–6 December	Naples Naples Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...	Italy
22	1998	30 November–5 December	Kyoto Kyoto is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...	Japan
23	1999	29 November–4 December	Marrakesh	Morocco
24	2000	27 November–2 December	Cairns Cairns, Queensland Cairns is a regional city in Far North Queensland, Australia, founded 1876. The city was named after William Wellington Cairns, then-current Governor of Queensland. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but experienced a decline when an easier route was...	Australia
25	2001	11 December–16 December	Helsinki Helsinki Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...	Finland
26	2002	24 June–29 June	Budapest Budapest Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...	Hungary
27	2003	30 June–5 July	Paris	Early Modern France
28	2004	28 June–7 July	Suzhou Suzhou Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...	Mainland China
29	2005	10 July–17 July	Durban Durban Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...	South Africa
30	2006	8 July–16 July	Vilnius Vilnius Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...	Lithuania
31	2007	23 June–1 July	Christchurch Christchurch Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...	New Zealand
32	2008	2 July-10 July	Quebec City Quebec City Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...	Canada
33	2009	22 June-30 June	Sevilla	Spain
34	2010	25 July-3 August	Brasilia Brasília Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...	Brazil
35	2011	19 June-29 June	Paris	Early Modern France
36	2012	25 June-5 July	Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...	Russia