Celebrating African World Heritage Day

Home to a wide variety of natural and cultural heritage, the African continent represents a stunning diversity of cultures and practices. From vestiges of civilizations past to centuries-old churches and rich cultural landscapes, heritage sites across Africa span all of human history.

In spite of this, the continent remains underrepresented on the World Heritage List, accounting for only 12% of listed sites, and is overrepresented on the List of World Heritage List in Danger, with 41.5% of endangered sites located in Africa.

Today, we’re celebrating African World Heritage Day by spotlighting some of the extraordinary places across Africa, both with and without World Heritage designation. Since its founding in 1965, World Monuments Fund (WMF) has been involved at more than 70 African cultural sites, combating threats to their survival through World Monuments Watch designation and conservation, capacity building, and documentation projects.