Most World Heritage Sites (country)

The country with the most World Heritage Sites, ascribed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is Italy, with 61 locations of historical and cultural significance as of 12 July 2025. The most recent Italian sites to be granted this protected status include the porticoes (sheltered walkways) of Bologna (in 2021), the karst and caves of the Northern Apennines (2023), Roman-built road the Via Appia, or Appian Way (2024) and the Domus de Janas rock-cut tombs of Sardinia (2025).

Italy sits just ahead of China with 60 World Heritage Sites, Germany with 55 and France on 54, as of 12 July 2025.

With this project, UNESCO aims to "encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972."

The 61 World Heritage Site locations in Italy are:

1. Rock Drawings in Valcamonica

2. Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci

3. Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura

4. Historic Centre of Florence

5. Piazza del Duomo, Pisa

6. Venice and its Lagoon

7. Historic Centre of San Gimignano

8. The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera

9. City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto

10. Crespi d'Adda

11. Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta

12. Historic Centre of Naples

13. Historic Centre of Siena

14. Castel del Monte

15. Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna

16. Historic Centre of the City of Pienza

17. The Trulli of Alberobello

18. 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex

19. Archaeological Area of Agrigento

20. Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata

21. Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico), Padua

22. Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande, Modena

23. Costiera Amalfitana

24. Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)

25. Residences of the Royal House of Savoy

26. Su Nuraxi di Barumini

27. Villa Romana del Casale

28. Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia

29. Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park with the Archaeological Sites of Paestum and Velia, and the Certosa di Padula

30. Historic Centre of Urbino

31. Villa Adriana (Tivoli)

32. Assisi, the Basilica of San Francesco and Other Franciscan Sites

33. City of Verona

34. Isole Eolie (Aeolian Islands)

35. Villa d'Este, Tivoli

36. Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto (South-Eastern Sicily)

37. Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy

38. Monte San Giorgio

39. Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia

40. Val d'Orcia

41. Syracuse and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica

42. Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli

43. Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe

44. Mantua and Sabbioneta

45. Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes

46. The Dolomites

47. Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power (AD 568-774)

48. Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps

49. Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany

50. Mount Etna

51. Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato

52. Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalú and Monreale

53. Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar

54. Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century

55. Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene

56. Padua’s 14th-century fresco cycles

57. The Great Spa Towns of Europe

58. The Porticoes of Bologna

59. Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Apennines

60. Via Appia (Appian Way)

61. Funerary Tradition in the Prehistory of Sardinia – The domus de janas