World Heritage

Online Map Platform

Funded by the Flanders UNESCO Trustfund (FUT), the World Heritage Online Map Platform (WHOMP) is the first Geographic Information System (GIS) to display the georeferenced boundaries of the World Heritage properties.

Polygons of the boundaries of World Heritage properties and their buffer zones (if any) are visible on different basemaps as required. WHOMP is also a monitoring platform that enables basic cartographic operations to be carried out and provides users with a range of useful tools and features, such as area and distance measurements, annotations and drawings, import of shapefiles, export of highly customised maps, pop-up windows containing basic information about each World Heritage site, etc.

For its pilot phase, only World Heritage properties from the Europe and North America region are displayed. But efforts are underway to extend the platform to properties in all regions, with priority given to World Heritage sites in Africa.

Launch full screen

Disclaimer

The polygons displayed on this platform have been generated by the States Parties to the World Heritage Convention concerned and verified by the World Heritage Centre against the maps adopted by the World Heritage Committee. In its first phase, this platform only contains polygons of World Heritage properties located in Europe and North America. This is a work in progress. The missing polygons have either not yet been submitted by the State(s) Party(ies) concerned, or are still being verified/adjusted by UNESCO and the State(s) Party(ies) concerned. The platform is strictly informative and does not commit UNESCO or the United Nations as a whole. For further information, please contact us at wh-gis@unesco.org.

The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the UNESCO or the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or any area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

The project

Until recently, the World Heritage Centre has lacked a single-access, open-to-all online platform where reliable geospatial data for World Heritage can be used for monitoring, analysis and decision-making. The World Heritage Online Map Platform project, supported by the Government of Flanders (Belgium) since 2021, addresses this need.

The World Heritage Online Map Platform (WHOMP) is an online GIS monitoring tool for World Heritage, linked to existing UNESCO databases, displaying georeferenced boundaries of World Heritage sites and their buffer zones. The project started with Europe and North America as a pilot region, harnessing synergies with the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting under the Convention between 2022 and 2023 the Retrospective Inventory project. States Parties concerned were invited to submit georeferenced maps of their World Heritage properties as inscribed by the World Heritage Committee. A verification phase followed: only those layers that do not show any deviation from the maps as adopted by the World Heritage Committee are integrated into the newly developed platform. If the layers present discrepancies, the project team will contact the State Party to rectify the data.

The platform seeks to facilitate the understanding of the boundaries of the World Heritage properties and their buffer zones, thus allowing better and earlier identification of potential impacts on their Outstanding Universal Value and helping States Parties to improve the monitoring of the state of conservation of the properties on their territory. This project represents a direct contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular to target 11.4 ‘Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world cultural and natural heritage’.

With the mobilisation of additional resources, other layers of data can be added to the system, starting with the factors affecting properties as listed in the State of Conservation Information System.

The platform serves to:

Strengthen the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties by providing State Parties with an online geographic information system to improve monitoring of the state of conservation.

Improve the quality and consistency of the maps of World Heritage properties, to facilitate access to and analysis of World Heritage geographic data, to develop adequate management systems.

Facilitate the planning and preparation of more accurate and complex Heritage Impact Assessments, Environmental Impact Assessments, and other relevant documents based on accessible and accurate maps of World Heritage and buffer zones boundaries.

Assist project developers (including private sector) to better understand the different boundaries of World Heritage protection, and guide them in the assessment of projects in or in the vicinity of a World Heritage property (a tool directly relevant for the implementation of the No-Go commitments or wind energy projects).

If you would like to contact the project team, please write to wh-gis@unesco.org.