TEHRAN – UNESCO added Iran’s Uramanat cultural landscape to its list of world heritage sites on Tuesday.

The UN body accepted the landscape, which holds hundreds of villages, 106,000 hectares of land, and 303,000 hectares of surrounding properties, during the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee, which will be running through July 31 in China’s Fuzhou.

Stretched on the slopes of Sarvabad county, and shared between the provinces of Kordestan and Kermanshah, the rural area embraces dense and step-like rows of houses in a way that the roof of each house forms the yard of the upper one, a feature that adds to its charm and attractiveness.

Last September, Hessam Mahdi, the representative of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), announced that the case for the inscription of the Uramanat cultural landscape on the prestigious list had been well prepared and he was “impressed” by the status of the rural landscape.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of a visit to the western province of Kermanshah. “I am proud of being chosen to assess the case and traveling to Iran as I could visit the local people in the region,” he said.

Local officials believe that inscription of the property on the prestigious list of the UN body could jumpstart tourism in the region and also look at it as a tool for better conservation of its natural landscapes and unique cultural scenes for the next generations, saying its unique rural texture, architecture, lifestyle, and agriculture is a prominent example of the integration of man into nature.

The Islamic Republic expects to reap a bonanza from its numerous tourist spots such as bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, of which 26 being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, Iran aims to increase the number of tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025. The latest available data show eight million tourists visited the Islamic Republic during the first ten months of the past Iranian calendar year (ended March 20).

AFM