Vredefort Dome in South Africa is one of seven natural sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 14 July, bringing the total to 160 natural sites and 24 mixed sites of outstanding universal value.

The second new site inscribed by the World Heritage Committee is Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley), in the Western Desert of Egypt, which contains invaluable fossil remains of the earliest, and now extinct, suborder of whales, the archaeoceti. These fossils represent one of the major stories of evolution: the emergence of the whale as an ocean-going mammal from a previous life as a land-based animal with limbs.

The other five sites are Shiretoko Peninsula in Japan; the West Norwegian Fjords Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord; a site comprising 244 islands, islets and coastal areas in the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico; the rugged mountainous area of Dong Phayayen: Khao Yai Forest Complex spanning 230 km between Ta Phraya National Park on the Cambodian border in the east and Khao Yai National Park in Thailand in the west; and Coiba National Park and its Special Zone of Marine Protection off the southwest coast of Panama.

For details: http://whc.unesco.org