UNESCO World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom: the list, the overseas four and what XTOUR covers

The short answer

The UK National Commission for UNESCO, which describes itself as the central hub for all UNESCO-related matters in the UK, counts 35 World Heritage properties in the UK and its Overseas Territories.[1] Its own list shows 36 entries, and the difference is explained by its own pages: the Frontiers of the Roman Empire is listed twice, as Hadrian's Wall and as the Antonine Wall, and the Hadrian's Wall entry says both are parts of one transnational property.[4][2] Bath also appears twice, but those are two inscriptions, not one: the City of Bath in 1987 and Bath's part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe in 2021.[7][6]

Four entries are in Overseas Territories: Gough and Inaccessible Islands, Henderson Island, the Gorham's Cave Complex in Gibraltar and the Historic Town of St George in Bermuda.[2] The Commission's living heritage pages describe the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies as self-governing entities not incorporated into the UK's legal or political framework, so XTOUR does not count them as UK destinations.[22] That leaves 31 properties in the UK itself, XTOUR's count from the Commission's entries.[3]

XTOUR could not read UNESCO's own World Heritage list pages (whc.unesco.org) on 11 October 2026. Every count, year and county below is therefore the Commission's, and where the Commission's own pages disagree, that is stated. Liverpool's removal is cited from a UNESCO World Heritage Centre news release.

Liverpool is no longer on the list

Liverpool's Maritime Mercantile City was inscribed in 2004, placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2012 over the proposed Liverpool Waters development, and deleted from the list by the World Heritage Committee at its 44th session, according to UNESCO's news release of 21 July 2021. UNESCO's news release gives the reason as "the irreversible loss of attributes" conveying the property's value, and calls Liverpool the third property ever to lose World Heritage status, after Dresden's Elbe Valley and the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary.[21] For the city, see Liverpool.

Where XTOUR's destinations meet the list

A World Heritage property's counties, as the Commission gives them, say where it is; they do not make it part of a destination, and several properties below are reached from an XTOUR base rather than sitting in it.

London. Four properties have Greater London in their counties field: the Tower of London (1988), the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including St Margaret's Church (1987), Maritime Greenwich (1997) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2003).[11] The Commission's Maritime Greenwich entry says the property takes in the Queen's House, the Royal Observatory, the Old Royal Naval College, Royal Museums Greenwich and old Greenwich's town centre.[10] Its Kew entry is not consistent with itself: the counties field reads "Greater London and Surrey", while the text places Kew "on the banks of the River Thames outside London".[11] See London, Westminster Abbey visiting, tickets and services and Maritime Greenwich: museums, observatory and Cutty Sark.

Edinburgh. The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh were inscribed in 1995, and the Forth Bridge in 2015. The Commission's list describes the bridge as spanning the Firth of Forth to the north-west of Edinburgh, and gives its counties as Fife and City of Edinburgh; for the Old and New Towns it gives Midlothian.[9][8] The two fields use different names for the area, and XTOUR does not reconcile them. See Edinburgh and Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.

Bath. The City of Bath inscription covers the entire urban area, which the Commission calls a situation seldom seen elsewhere; the 2021 inscription adds Bath to the Great Spa Towns of Europe, a serial property of 11 spa towns in seven countries.[7][6] See Bath and the Roman Baths and the World Heritage city.

Canterbury. One property, inscribed in 1988, joins three places: the cathedral, the remains of St Augustine's Abbey and St Martin's Church, which the Commission calls the oldest church in the English-speaking world.[12] See Canterbury and Canterbury Cathedral and the World Heritage site.

Glasgow. Glasgow is one of five council areas the Commission lists for the Antonine Wall, with East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire. The entry describes a turf rampart, not a stone wall, running 37 miles from Bo'ness to Old Kilpatrick.[5] See Glasgow.

Oxford, Bath and Belfast as bases, not locations. Blenheim Palace is a World Heritage property in its own right, inscribed in 1987, and the Commission places it in Oxfordshire.[18] Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites (1986) is in Wiltshire, and the Commission describes it as a landscape of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments that includes the henge at Avebury and Silbury Hill as well as Stonehenge.[13] The Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast (1986) is in Antrim; the Commission calls it Northern Ireland's first World Heritage site.[14] XTOUR treats Oxford, Bath and Belfast as bases for these three, not as where they are. See Stonehenge and Avebury: English Heritage or National Trust.

None of the 36 entries names York, Cambridge, Cardiff, Inverness or Belfast in its counties field.[3]

Sites XTOUR covers without a destination

Two more properties have XTOUR guides but no XTOUR destination around them. The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd (1986) group Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech with the town walls of Conwy and Caernarfon.[16] See Edward I's castles in Gwynedd. Hadrian's Wall runs, in the Commission's words, 73 miles coast to coast across northern England, and its entry lists five local areas: North and South Tyneside, Newcastle, Northumberland and Cumberland.[4] See Hadrian's Wall as English Heritage describes it.

Where the Commission's pages disagree

The Antonine Wall's year. The Antonine Wall entry gives its year of inscription as 1987.[5] The Hadrian's Wall entry says Hadrian's Wall was inscribed in 1987 and that the Antonine Wall was added to the Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2008, after the German Limes in 2005.[4] The two pages give different years for the same component. XTOUR reports both, as the table below does, and could not check either against UNESCO's own list.

Counties. The counties field mixes conventions: Midlothian for Edinburgh's Old and New Towns but City of Edinburgh for the Forth Bridge, and "Greater London and Surrey" for a Kew that the same page says is outside London.[11][9][8] Pontcysyllte's entry lists Wrexham, Denbighshire and Shropshire, while its text places the aqueduct in north-east Wales.[17]

Natural sites. The Commission's Giant's Causeway entry says it is one of only three UK properties inscribed solely for natural heritage, and its September 2026 news item calls the Jurassic Coast England's only natural World Heritage site.[20][14] The third, by the Commission's type field, is the Flow Country in Caithness and Sutherland, inscribed in 2024.[3] St Kilda is listed as the UK's only mixed site, natural and cultural.[19]

All 36 entries as the Commission lists them

The table restates the "Key Information" block of each of the Commission's 36 site pages as read on 11 October 2026.[3] Gracehill is the Northern Ireland part of a transnational property, the Moravian Church Settlements, and the Commission's year for it is 2024.[15] The Commission spells one Pontcysyllte county "Denbigshire"; the table corrects the spelling only.[17]

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR could not read UNESCO's own list, so it has not checked the Commission's years, the exact boundaries of any property or whether any World Heritage Committee decision has changed the UK's entries since the Commission last updated its pages; the Commission still gave 35 on 11 October 2026.[2] It does not say which buildings, streets or stretches of wall lie inside an inscribed area beyond what the Commission's entries name. Visiting arrangements are each site operator's to state, and the guides linked above report them where XTOUR has read the operator's own pages. The tentative list of future UK nominations is not covered here. For heritage that UNESCO recognises as practice rather than place, see the UK's living heritage inventories.