7 Fascinating Former Lives of UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Protection and preservation are the pillars that founded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage list in 1972. Ensuring the longevity of the most important natural and cultural sites on Earth through legal stewardship, the program currently includes 1,157 wonders in 167 countries and the list grows each year. Many, like Angkor Wat, the Pyramids of Giza, or Machu Picchu, are quite familiar to us, seen in history books or—for lucky travelers—in person. But as well-known as some of these landmark sites may feel, a deeper look into history reveals some unexpected origin stories.
Photo: Getty Images/Antonio Hugo1/7Old Bridge (Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Spanning the Neretva River and linking two parts of the city, the arched Ottoman bridge that stands today in Mostar, Bosnia, is not actually the original. The structure was first constructed in 1557 and is considered an important example of Balkan Islamic architecture. However, during the Croat–Bosniak War it was used as a military supply line and suffered heavy shelling that caused it to collapse into the water below in 1993. UNESCO and the international community stepped in immediately with plans to rebuild it, and after intense research and technical monitoring, it was completed in 2004. The bridge and the surrounding old city were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List the following year.
Photo: Getty Images/Federica Grassi2/7Archaeological Site of Delphi (Delphi, Greece)
Today it’s one of the most popular UNESCO sites for its stunning mountainous landscape and cultural significance to the ancient Greeks, but the Pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Delphi was not always as revered. After Christianity became the main religion in Greece, the site’s temple and structures were destroyed in 390 AD and it was abandoned. Soon after, locals built the village of Kastri atop its ruins, reusing some of the historic marble to create approximately 100 homes. The site’s whereabouts were largely lost to history until the early 19th century, when antiquities experts began visiting the village suspecting it to be Delphi. After many years of excavations and the relocation of the Kastri villagers to an adjacent area, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1987.
Photo: Getty Images/Paul Henderson3/7Coiba National Park (El Trapiche, Panama)
In the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Panama, lies the largest island in Central America: Coiba, a lush reserve that is 80% covered by tropical rainforest. From 1914 to 2004 locals knew it as a prison, where murderers, rapists, and political prisoners from the Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega dictatorships toiled in harsh forced labor. Because access to the island was very restricted, its nature flourished unfettered and, in 1992, Panama created Coiba National Park, encompassing over 1,042 pristine square miles of isles, forests, beaches, mangroves, and coral reefs—including the entirety of Coiba island. One year after the Coiba prison was shuttered, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site for its ecological importance.
Photo: Getty Images4/7Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park (Panchmahal district, Gujarat, India)
With a history that dates to the Copper Age, the area around the historical city of Champaner in India has seen several battles, cultural events, and changes of ideological ownership in its time, all well-documented in its collection of architecture on-site. Palaces, temples, tombs, and more here are fantastic examples of both the Hindu and Muslim cultures that governed it at various stages; at one point, it served as the capital of the Gujarat state. But for such importance, it is surprising to note that the site was nearly deserted thrice: once in the 1500s when its Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah died, in 1812 when a cholera epidemic swept through, and most recently in the late 1800s when even monetary incentives from the British could not commit locals to homestead the site.
Photo: Getty Images/Hiroshi Higuchi5/7Dessau Bauhaus (Dessau, Germany)
After the Bauhaus design school in Dessau, Germany, was forced to close due to Nazi opposition in the early 1930s, it was co-opted for a decidedly evil curriculum. Though Hitler’s party claimed to oppose the Bauhaus building’s architecture style and the teachings upon which it was based, they chose to reuse it as a Gauführerschule training institute, spreading their fascist, antisemitic ideas to citizens in the Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt region. In 1945, the school was partially burned during an air raid; it was then rebuilt postwar, and it served as a vocational school. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996.
Photo: Getty Images6/7Temple of Borobudur (Java, Indonesia)
Constructed in the eighth and ninth centuries, the Buddhist temple of Borobudur—the world’s largest—has long been a pilgrimage site for devout followers. But by the 1500s, when Islam had gained popularity in the region, it was suddenly abandoned, covered in volcanic ash from near eruptions, grown over by lush Indonesian flora, and largely forgotten. When the British ruled over the nation briefly from 1811 to 1815, locals showed leader Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles its location, and excavation began anew. More than a century later, in the 1970s, UNESCO and the government of Indonesia partnered to restore the significant temple and preserve its heritage for the ages.
Photo: Getty Images/Ruben Earth7/7Hashima Island Coal Mine (Hashima Island, Japan)
At eight nautical miles from Nagasaki, the tiny Hashima Island is a newer UNESCO site, designated in 2015, and known for its undersea coal mines, which were established in the late 1800s and serve as a significant marker of Japanese industrialization. Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and continued these efforts, constructing all the facilities daily life workers living there would need. However, in the 1930s, through the end of World War II, its history takes a haunting turn. Under Japanese wartime policies, Hashima Island became a cruel labor camp where Chinese prisoners of war and conscripted Korean civilians were tortured and forced to work at the Mitsubishi mine until many tragically died. How many is still unknown, but some estimates suggest up to 1,300 people were starved, exhausted, or otherwise passed in work-related accidents.