Erik Van ‘T Woud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Will the entire known world eventually be a Unesco World Heritage Site? As of Sunday, 890 locations were designated by the World Heritage Committee as “having outstanding universal value.” On Monday, when the committee completed its consideration of new nominees, a new set of 21 places joined that list. The additions range from remote natural locations, like the central highlands of Sri Lanka, to well-trodden urban places, like Amsterdam’s 17th-century canal belt.
The committee also added four locations to their list of sites in danger, including the Everglades National Park in Florida. They removed the Galápagos Islands from that list as well, having found that significant progress had been made in combating “threats posed by invasive species, unbridled tourism and over-fishing.” (The islands remain on the larger site list.)
The Unesco campaign began after Egypt’s 1959 decision to build the Aswan High Dam, which would have flooded the valley containing the ancient Abu Simbel temples. (The temples were dismantled, moved to dry ground and reassembled.) In 1978, 12 sites made up the initial list. In the years since, sites have been nominated based on a specific set of criteria — which include representations of “a masterpiece of human creative genius” and examples of “superlative natural phenomena” — and are then voted on by the committee, made up of members from a variety of countries.
The newly designated sites also included the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the imperial citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam, and the Atsinanana rain forest in Madagascar. Among others, Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate, will have to wait until the next go-around: it was nominated but rejected.
. 
Unesco's World Heritage Committee inscribed 21 new sites into the World Heritage list on Wednesday, during the 34th session of the committee's meeting in , Brazil under the Chairmanship of the Minister of Culture of Brazil, João Luiz da Silva Ferreira.

Three countries had sites added to the list for the first time: Tajikistan, Kiribati, and Marshall Islands.  The Committee added four sites to the World Heritage in Danger list, including the  and , both in Georgia.  The Galapagos (Ecuador) were removed from this list.

Some of the newly included World Heritages are:  (United States),  (Mexico), and  (Brazil).

Unesco World Heritage sites have special cultural or physical significance as a place or region. Unesco conserves, names, and catalogues these sites for the common heritage of humanity. Italy ranks as the country with the most World Heritage sites, having 45 in total.