UNESCO – World Heritage

There are 11 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Argentina. They are spread all over the country and can be enjoyed while visiting other agricultural, cultural and tourist attractions.

 

Los Glaciares National Park (1981)

Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis (1983, 1984)

Iguazú National Park (1984)

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas (Cave of the Hands) (1999)

Valdes Peninsula (1999)

Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba (2000)

Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks  (2000)

Quebrada de Humahuaca (2003)

Qhapaq Ñan – Andean road system  (2014)

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier – an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement (2016)

Los Alerces National Park (2017)

 

Los Glaciares

Los Glaciares National Park is a place of outstanding natural beauty with breathtaking summits and many glacial lakes, such as Argentino Lake, which is 160 km long. In one of its ends, three glaciers gather, creating huge icebergs in freezing milky grey water. A spectacle worth seeing and hearing.

 

 

 

Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis

The ruins of five Jesuit Missions are located in the heart of the trofical forest: San Ignacio Miní, Santa Ana, Nuestra Señora de Loreto and Santa María la Mayor (Argentina) y San Miguel de las Misiones (Brazil). They were built in Guaranis’ land in the 17th and 18th centuries. They are well-known for their specific layout and its state of conservation.

 

 

Iguazú National Park

At the heart of this park is Iguazú Waterfalls. Formed by a semicircular basaltic outcrop of 80 m high and 2,700 m in diameter, the waterfall separates Argentina and Brazil and it is one of the most spectacular of the world. It is made up of 275 jumps , of which 80% are located on the Argentine side.. The tropical rainforest is home of more than 2,000 vascular plants and fauna, such as tapirs, big anteaters, howlers, ocelots, jaguars and caimans (the natives yacarés).

 

 

 

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas (Cave of the Hands)

The Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, contains an exceptional assemblage of cave art, executed between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. It takes its name (Cave of the Hands) from the stenciled outlines of human hands in the cave. There are also many depictions of animals, such as guanacos (Lama guanicoe), still commonly found in the region, as well as hunting scenes. The people responsible for the paintings may have been the ancestors of the historic hunter-gatherer communities of Patagonia found by European settlers in the 19th century.

 

 

 

Valdes Peninsula

Península Valdés in Patagonia is a site of global significance for the conservation of marine mammals. It is home to an important breeding population of the endangered southern right whale as well as important breeding populations of southern elephant seals and southern sea lions. The orcas in this area have developed a unique hunting strategy to adapt to local coastal conditions.

 

 

Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba

The Jesuit Block in Córdoba, heart of the former Jesuit Province of Paraguay, contains the core buildings of the Jesuit system: the university, the church and residence of the Society of Jesus, and the college. Along with the five estancias, or farming estates, they contain religious and secular buildings, which illustrate the unique religious, social, and economic experiment carried out in the world for a period of over 150 years in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

 

 

Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks

These two contiguous parks, extending over 275,300 hectares in the desert region on the western border of the Sierras Pampeanas of central Argentina, contain the most complete continental fossil record known from the Triassic Period, which started 245 million years ago and finished 37 million years later. Six geological formations in the parks contain fossils of a wide range of ancestors of mammals, dinosaurs and plants revealing the evolution of vertebrates and the nature of palaeo-environments in the Triassic Period

 

 

 

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Quebrada de Humahuaca follows the line of a major cultural route, the Camino Inca, along the spectacular valley of the Rio Grande, from its source in the cold high desert plateau of the High Andean lands to its confluence with the Rio Leone some 150 km to the south. The valley shows substantial evidence of its use as a major trade route over the past 10,000 years. It features visible traces of prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities, of the Inca Empire (15th to 16th centuries) and of the Argentina’s fight for independence in the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

 

  

Qhapaq Ñan - Andean Road System

 This site is an extensive Inca communication, trade and defence network of roads covering 30,000 km. Constructed by the Incas over several centuries and partly based on pre-Inca infrastructure, this extraordinary network through one of the world’s most extreme geographical terrains linked the snow-capped peaks of the Andes—at an altitude of more than 6,000 m to the coast, running through hot rainforests, fertile valleys and absolute deserts. It reached its maximum expansion in the 15th century, when it spread across the length and breadth of the Andes. The Qhapac Ñan, Andean Road System includes 274 component sites spread over more than 5,000 km between Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Perú. Those components were selected to highlight the social, political, architectural and engineering achievements of the network, along with its associated infrastructure for trade, accommodation and storage, as well as sites of religious significance

 

 

 

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier

 Chosen from the work of Le Corbusier, the 17 sites comprising this transnational serial property are spread over seven countries and are a testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past. They were built over a period of a half-century, in the course of what Le Corbusier described as “patient research”. The Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh (India), the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Japan), the House of Dr Curutchet in La Plata (Argentina) and the Unité d'habitation in Marseille (France), among others, reflect the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society. These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet

 

 

Los Alerces National Park

The Park has 259,570 hectares. The reason it was built was the protection of the Iahuán forest or larch tree, one of the trees with higher longevity in the planet. This tree has even been in danger of extinction. Since 2007 it is part of the andino patagonica biosphere.

The protected area is framed by the Patagonia forests and the high Andes, with cold mild climate. Winters are rainy and it frequently snows, summers are dry with cool nights. In the area there is a complex lacustrine system with many rivers, streams and water mirrors.