Jodrell Bank Observatory: 13 stunning Unesco heritage sites around the world
- Published
Jodrell Bank Observatory has joined some pretty big company. The 76m telescope was the largest steerable dish in the world when it was completed in 1957 and it was used to track the Sputnik spacecraft as it made its first ever orbit around the earth. Let's look at some of the other World Heritage Sites...
You may well recognise this one! It's the Grand Canyon, which you will find in the state of Arizona in America. It is carved out by the Colorado River and cuts through the Grand Canyon National Park. The gorge is nearly 1,500m deep and the different layers of rock reveal clues about geological history from the past 2 billion years!
Time to cool off with the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. Over thousands of years, water has flowed over the limestone and chalk here, which has created lots of natural dams. These have made lots of beautiful pools and mini waterfalls, with loads of wildlife in the forests nearby.
There are many World Heritage sites to be found in China, but this is probably one of the most famous: the Great Wall of China. It dates back to around 220 BC, but construction continued on the wall for many hundreds of years, until around the 17th century. At more than 20,000km long, it would take you a while to walk all the way along it!
Well, you'd certainly need lots of colours in your paint box to paint this town! In fact, Cinque Terre in Italy is made up of five beautiful fishing villages. The one in this photo is called Manarola.
Equally as colourful is the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, which dates back to the 10th century. It was actually destroyed by a fire at the beginning of the 19th century, but thankfully rebuilt between 1834 and 1862, so visitors can enjoy it today.
According to Unesco, Angkor in Cambodia is "one of the most important archaeological sites in south-east Asia". It is over 400 square km and full of temples, reservoirs and other structures dating back to the 9th century. Check out the amazing roots of the tree in this picture!
Not all Unesco sites have to be on land. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia contains the world鈥檚 largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
We don't know about you, but we think that this looks like quite a spectacular place to live! This is Mont-Saint-Michel in France, which is a Benedictine abbey - dedicated to the archangel St Michael - and the village which grew around it.
The Vatican City in Italy is an extremely important religious site. At the very centre is St Peter's Basilica, which is the largest religious building in the world. The Vatican is where the Roman Catholic Church is based and where the Pope lives.
Located in the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria, this stunning park boasts all sorts of beautiful features, like glacial lakes, waterfalls, caves and forests. Not a bad place to take a stroll!
This photo taken at night in La Grand-Place in Brussels - the capital city of Belgium - gives you an idea of how impressive the buildings in this square are. It dates mainly to the late 17th century and is always full of tourists sitting and having coffee, or taking lots of photos!
The Old Bridge Area in the Old City of Mostar is one of the most spectacular sights to be seen in Bosnia. Like the Rila Monastery, the bridge - called Stari Most - was also destroyed (in fighting in the 1990s), but rebuilt in 2004.
Like China, India has many Unesco sites spread across the country, but this has to be one of the most well known. The beautiful Taj Mahal was built from white marble by order of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife. It is one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world.
- Published22 May 2017