Global Screen.

A former Viking site on the island of Gotland, Visby was the main center of the Hanseatic League of the Baltic from the 12th to the 14th century. Its 13th-century ramparts and more than 200 warehouses and trading establishments from the same period make it the best-preserved fortified commercial city in Northern Europe.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum is a printing plant and publishing house dating from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Situated in Antwerp—one of the three leading cities of early European printing, along with Paris and Venice—it is associated with the history of the invention and spread of typography. Its name refers to the greatest printer-publisher of the second half of the 16th century: Christophe Plantin (c. 1520-1589). The monument is of outstanding...

Founded in 1519 by the conquistador Pedrarías Dávila, Panamá Viejo is the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. It was laid out on a rectilinear grid and marks the transference from Europe of the idea of a planned town. Abandoned in the mid-17th century, it was replaced by a "new town" (the "Historic District"), which has also preserved its original street plan, its architecture and an unusual mixture of Spanish, French...

A Roman colony since the 1st century A.D. and then a trading center beginning in the next century, Trier, along the Moselle River, became one of the capitals of the Tetrachy at the end of the 3rd century and was called the "second Rome." It is an excellent testimony to Roman civilization because of the density and quality of the preserved monuments.

The wooden church of Urnes (the stavkirke) stands in the natural setting of Sogn og Fjordane. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is an outstanding example of traditional Scandinavian wooden architecture. It brings together traces of Celtic art, Viking traditions and Romanesque spatial structures.

In the Middle Ages, this natural harbor on the Adriatic coast in Montenegro was an important artistic and commercial centre with its own famous schools of masonry and iconography. A large number of the monuments (including four Romanesque churches and the town walls) were seriously damaged by the 1979 earthquake but the town has been restored, largely with UNESCO’s help.

Inhabited since 250 B.C., Djenné developed into a market center and a link in the trans-Saharan gold trade. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it became one of the spiritual centers for the dissemination of Islam. Its traditional houses, of which close to 2,000 have survived, are built on hillocks (toguere) and adapted to the environment of seasonal floods.

As the holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem has always had a high symbolic value. Among the 220 historic monuments is the stunning Dome of the Rock, built in the 7th century and decorated with beautiful geometric and floral motifs. It is recognized by all three religions as the site of Abraham's sacrifice. The Wailing Wall delimits the quarters of the different religious communities, while the Resurrection Rotonda protects Christ's...

The Royal Hill of Ambohimanga consists of a royal city and burial site and an ensemble of sacred places. It is associated with strong feelings of national identity, and has maintained its spiritual and sacred character both in ritual practice and the popular imagination for the past 500 years. It remains a place of worship to which pilgrims come from Madagascar and elsewhere.

Built on a site inhabited since the Paleolithic period, the Walled City of Baku reveals evidence of Zoroastrian, Sassanian, Arabic, Persian, Shirvani, Ottoman, and Russian presence in cultural continuity. The Inner City (Icheri Sheher) has preserved much of its 12th-century defensive walls. The 12th-century Maiden Tower (Giz Galasy) is built over earlier structures dating from the 7th to 6th centuries B.C., and the 15th-century Shirvanshahs' Palace...