Most southerly World Heritage Site

The most southerly World Heritage Site to have been inscribed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is Macquarie Island, located in the Southern Ocean at a latitude of 54.6° S, about halfway between Australia and Antarctica. It was inducted in 1997 owing to its great geological significance; a region of great tectonic activity, positioned on the border of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates, it’s believed to be the only place on Earth where rocks from the mantle (normally several kilometres below the seafloor) are so readily exposed above the ocean surface.

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 first World Heritage Sites (comprising 12 properties, beginning with Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands) were officially inscribed by UNESCO in 1978.

On the other side of the planet, the most northerly UNESCO World Heritage Site is Wrangel Island Reserve (inducted in 2004), located off northern Russia and part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, which reaches a latitude of 71.6° N.