Traveling to heritage places, is always a treat. You not only get a chance to explore something new but also you get to know something new about the places and stories, culture and history related to that place. Icing on the cake, when you come to know the site is under the UNESCO’s world heritage list.
We bring you some top UNESCO world heritage sites from India. So pack your bags and start the journey with us.
1. Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh
The newly added site in UNESCO’s world heritage, it spreads over an area of 754. 4 square kilometers. Great Himalayan National Park, situated in India’s Kullu region in northern Himachal Pradesh, has upper mountain snow melt and glacier water melt origins of several rivers including Indus. It has various animal species as well such as snow leopard, Himalayan brown bear, Himalayan Tahr etc. It’s a wildlife conservation site and hence hunting is strictly prohibited.
2. Rani Ki Vav, Patan, Gujarat
Rani Ki Vav or queen’s well in Patan was built around in the 3rd millennium BC in the memory of the son of the founder of Solanki Dynasty Bhimdev 1 by his widowed queen Udayamati. It has various stone carvings and stepped corridors devoted to Lord Vishnu’s 10 incarnations. It’s also known as inverted temple as it is divided into seven levels of well each having its own importance as per religious and mythological works. This site was included in UNESCO’s world heritage list in 2014.
3. Western Ghats
The Westerns Ghats or Sahyadri Mountain ranges situated in the western coast of Indian peninsula. The ranges consists of several national parks, reserve forests, and wildlife sanctuaries in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, runs north to south along the western edge of Deccan plateau. The forest has around 325 species of flora and fauna which are classified into endangered, rare and critically endangered species.
4. Mountain Railways of India
Mountain Railways of India, which consists of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Kalka-Shimla Railway runs in the north Bengal region, passes through a beautiful scenery and terrain which will delight you. Created in 19th and the early 20th century it’s an engineering marvel of the country in the region where connectivity is the real problem. Added to UNESCO’s world heritage, this is indeed a gem in India’s heritage.
5. Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh
Standing tall and proving the togetherness of art form and landscape in the ancient era, Rock Shelters in Bhimbetka is the place where the earliest traces of human life were found on Indian subcontinent. Carving and painting in the period of Mesolithic era (More than 100,000 year ago) are the key things which tells us the history of our predecessors. This site is highly important for the study of Mesolithic era due its historical richness.
By Prajakt K.
