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Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Masjed-e Jāmé of Isfahan - Iran

Located in the historic centre of Isfahan, the Masjed-e Jāmé (‘Friday mosque’) can be seen as a stunning illustration of the evolution of mosque architecture over twelve centuries, starting in ad 841. 
It is the oldest preserved edifice of its type in Iran and a prototype for later mosque designs throughout Central Asia. 
The complex, covering more than 20,000 m2, is also the first Islamic building that adapted the four-courtyard layout of Sassanid palaces to Islamic religious architecture. 
Its double-shelled ribbed domes represent an architectural innovation that inspired builders throughout the region. 
The site also features remarkable decorative details representative of stylistic developments over more than a thousand years of Islamic art.








Salta

Salta is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina. 
It is located in the north of the country.








Monday, January 29, 2024

Margravial Opera House Bayreuth - Germany

A masterpiece of Baroque theatre architecture, built between 1745 and 1750, the Opera House is the only entirely preserved example of its type where an audience of 500 can experience Baroque court opera culture and acoustics authentically, as its auditorium retains its original materials, i.e. wood and canvas. 
Commissioned by Margravine Wilhelmine, wife of Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg–Bayreuth, it was designed by the renowned theatre architect Giuseppe Galli Bibiena. 
As a court opera house in a public space, it foreshadowed the large public theatres of the 19th century. 
The highly decorated theatre’s tiered loge structure of wood with illusionistic painted canvas represents the ephemeral ceremonial architectural tradition that was employed in pageants and celebrations for princely self-representation.








Rose wine

Rose wine is wine made from red grapes, sometimes in combination with white grapes. 
The wine gets its color because the skins of the blue grapes remain in the juice for less time than when preparing red wine. 
Carbon dioxide may be added during the filling of the bottles.








Sunday, January 21, 2024

Major Mining Sites of Wallonia - Belgium

The four sites of the property form a strip 170 km long by 3–15 km wide, crossing Belgium from east to west, consisting of the best-preserved 19th- and 20th-century coal-mining sites of the country. 
It features examples of the utopian architecture from the early periods of the industrial era in Europe within a highly integrated, industrial and urban ensemble, notably the Grand-Hornu colliery and workers’ city designed by Bruno Renard in the first half of the 19th century. 
Bois-du-Luc includes numerous buildings erected from 1838 to 1909 and one of Europe’s oldest collieries dating back to the late 17th century. 
While Wallonia had hundreds of collieries, most have lost their infrastructure, while the four components of the listed site retain a high measure of integrity.








Tra Vinh

Trà Vinh is a province of Vietnam. 
The province was created in 1991, after the former province of Cửu Long was split into Vĩnh Long and Trà Vinh.







Friday, January 19, 2024

Lena Pillars Nature Park - Russia

Lena Pillars Nature Park is marked by spectacular rock pillars that reach a height of approximately 100 m along the banks of the Lena River in the central part of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). 
They were produced by the region’s extreme continental climate with an annual temperature range of almost 100 degrees Celsius (from –60 °C in winter to +40 °C in summer). 
The pillars form rocky buttresses isolated from each other by deep and steep gullies developed by frost shattering directed along intervening joints. 
Penetration of water from the surface has facilitated cryogenic processes (freeze-thaw action), which have widened gullies between pillars leading to their isolation. 
Fluvial processes are also critical to the pillars. 
The site also contains a wealth of Cambrian fossil remains of numerous species, some of them unique.








Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Landscape of Grand Pré - Canada

Situated in the southern Minas Basin of Nova Scotia, the Grand Pré marshland and archaeological sites constitute a cultural landscape bearing testimony to the development of agricultural farmland using dykes and the aboiteau wooden sluice system, started by the Acadians in the 17th century and further developed and maintained by the Planters and present-day inhabitants. 
Over 1,300 ha, the cultural landscape encompasses a large expanse of polder farmland and archaeological elements of the towns of Grand Pré and Hortonville, which were built by the Acadians and their successors. 
The landscape is an exceptional example of the adaptation of the first European settlers to the conditions of the North American Atlantic coast. 
The site – marked by one of the most extreme tidal ranges in the world, averaging 11.6 m – is also inscribed as a memorial to Acadian way of life and deportation, which started in 1755, known as the Grand Dérangement.








Virginia

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is one of the states of the United States. 
The name is a reference to Queen Elizabeth I of England, The Virgin Queen.








Sunday, January 14, 2024

Lakes of Ounianga - Chad

The site includes eighteen interconnected lakes in the hyper arid Ennedi region of the Sahara desert covering an area of 62,808 ha. 
It constitutes an exceptional natural landscape of great beauty with striking colours and shapes. 
The saline, hyper saline and freshwater lakes are supplied by groundwater and are found in two groups 40 km apart. 
Ounianga Kebir comprises four lakes, the largest of which, Yoan, covers an area of 358 ha and is 27 m deep.
Its highly saline waters only sustain algae and some microorganisms. 
The second group, Ounianga Serir, comprises fourteen lakes separated by sand dunes. 
Floating reeds cover almost half the surface of these lakes reducing evaporation. 
At 436 ha, Lake Teli has the largest surface area but is less than 10 m deep. 
With their high quality freshwater, some of these lakes are home to aquatic fauna, particularly fish.