UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran

Iran has 30 properties on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The 30th, Alamut Castle and Related Fortifications, was inscribed on 26 July 2026 at the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, a year after the Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley were added in July 2025. Of the 30, 28 are cultural sites and two, the Lut Desert and the Hyrcanian Forests, are natural.

The list below runs in order of inscription. Each entry links to the page in this section that covers the site in more detail.

The first three (1979)

Iran ratified the World Heritage Convention in 1975, and its first three sites were inscribed in 1979, the year of the revolution. No more were added for 24 years.

1. Tchogha Zanbil (1979, Khuzestan): the brick ziggurat and temple city built by the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha around 1250 BCE. Visiting Chogha Zanbil.
2. Persepolis (1979, Fars): the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid kings, begun by Darius I around 518 BCE and burned by Alexander in 330 BCE. Building Persepolis.
3. Meidan Emam, Esfahan (1979, Isfahan): Shah Abbas I’s great square with the Shah Mosque, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Ali Qapu and the bazaar gate. Naqsh-e Jahan Square.

The 2000s: from Takht-e Soleyman to Tabriz

4. Takht-e Soleyman (2003, West Azerbaijan): the Sasanian royal fire temple of Adur Gushnasp around a spring-fed crater lake, later rebuilt by the Ilkhanids. Takht-e Soleyman.
5. Bam and its Cultural Landscape (2004, Kerman): the adobe citadel and oasis town devastated by the earthquake of December 2003; it was on the List in Danger until 2013. Arg-e Bam.
6. Pasargadae (2004, Fars): the first Achaemenid capital, with the tomb of Cyrus the Great and the earliest known Persian garden plan. Visiting Pasargadae.
7. Soltaniyeh (2005, Zanjan): the mausoleum of the Ilkhan Öljaitü, completed in the early 14th century, with one of the largest brick domes in the world. Dome of Soltaniyeh.
8. Bisotun (2006, Kermanshah): the cliff on the old road to Mesopotamia carrying Darius I’s trilingual inscription and relief. Behistun (Bisotun).
9. Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran (2008, West and East Azerbaijan): St Thaddeus, St Stepanos and the Chapel of Dzordzor, centres of Armenian Christianity for centuries. Armenian monasteries.
10. Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System (2009, Khuzestan): weirs, canals, tunnels and water mills on the Karun river, with origins in the Sasanian period. Shushtar water system.
11. Sheikh Safi al-din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble (2010, Ardabil): the Sufi shrine of the Safavids’ ancestor, with the china house and tiled tomb towers. Sheikh Safi al-Din Shrine.
12. Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex (2010, East Azerbaijan): one of the largest covered bazaars in the world, a hub of the Silk Road trade. Tabriz Historic Bazaar.

2011 to 2019: gardens, deserts and forests

13. The Persian Garden (2011, nine gardens in several provinces): Pasargadae, Eram, Chehel Sotoun, Fin, Abbas Abad, Shazdeh, Dowlatabad, Pahlevanpour and Akbarieh, chosen to show the four-part garden over 2,500 years. The Persian Garden through History.
14. Gonbad-e Qabus (2012, Golestan): a 53-metre brick tomb tower built in 1006 for the Ziyarid ruler Qabus. Gonbad-e Qabus.
15. Masjed-e Jāmeh of Isfahan (2012, Isfahan): the Friday Mosque whose Seljuk domes and four-iwan plan shaped mosque design across Iran. Jameh Mosque of Isfahan.
16. Golestan Palace (2013, Tehran): the Qajar royal palace complex in the centre of Tehran, mixing Persian and European styles. Golestan Palace.
17. Shahr-i Sokhta (2014, Sistan and Baluchestan): the Bronze Age “Burnt City” on the Helmand delta, founded around 3200 BCE. Shahr-e Sukhteh.
18. Cultural Landscape of Maymand (2015, Kerman): a village of homes cut into soft rock, still used by semi-nomadic herders in winter. Meymand village.
19. Susa (2015, Khuzestan): mounds covering 6,000 years of settlement, from Elamite city to Achaemenid palace. Susa archaeological site.
20. Lut Desert (2016, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan): Iran’s first natural site: giant yardangs, dune fields and some of the hottest ground surfaces measured on Earth. Dasht-e Lut.
21. The Persian Qanat (2016, eleven qanats in several provinces): underground water channels, among them the qanat of Qasabeh at Gonabad. The Qanat of Gonabad.
22. Historic City of Yazd (2017, Yazd): an adobe desert city of windcatchers, covered lanes and Zoroastrian and Islamic monuments. Yazd.
23. Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region (2018, Fars): Firuzabad, Bishapur and Sarvestan: cities, palaces and rock reliefs of the early Sasanian kings. Sasanian sites of Fars.
24. Hyrcanian Forests (2019, Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan): ancient broadleaf forests along the Caspian; the site was extended into Azerbaijan in 2023. Hyrcanian Forests.

2021 to 2026: railway, caravanserais and the newest sites

25. Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat (2021, Kurdistan and Kermanshah): terraced Kurdish villages on steep mountain slopes, with a farming and herding way of life. Sanandaj and Kurdish culture.
26. Trans-Iranian Railway (2021, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf): the line built 1927 to 1938, crossing two mountain ranges with hundreds of bridges and tunnels. The Trans-Iranian Railway.
27. The Persian Caravanserai (2023, many provinces): 54 roadside inns from different centuries along Iran’s historic trade and pilgrimage routes. Persian caravanserais.
28. Hegmataneh (2024, Hamadan): the great mound in the centre of Hamadan, identified with Ecbatana, capital of the Medes. Ecbatana, capital of the Medes.
29. The Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley (2025, Lorestan): five caves and rock shelters (Yafteh, Kunji, Ghamari, Gilvaran and Gar Arjeneh) with traces of human life from the Middle Palaeolithic onward; Iran’s first Palaeolithic World Heritage site. Prehistoric Iran.
30. Alamut Castle and Related Fortifications (2026, Qazvin): the mountain stronghold of the Nizari Ismailis in the Alborz, with associated castles in the valley. Alamut Castle.

Heritage sites and the wars of 2025 and 2026

The fighting that began on 28 February 2026 raised fears for Iran’s monuments. On 11 March 2026 UNESCO said it was “deeply concerned” and that four of Iran’s World Heritage properties had been damaged, among them Golestan Palace in Tehran, where blast damage shattered glass and woodwork; it also reported damage in Isfahan and near the buffer zone of the Khorramabad Valley sites. UNESCO said it had given the coordinates of key cultural sites to all parties. The full extent of the damage had not been independently assessed by the time of writing, so check UNESCO’s own updates for the current state of each site.

Intangible heritage

Alongside these places, Iran has more than 20 living traditions on UNESCO’s intangible heritage lists, including Nowruz, Yalda, the zurkhaneh rituals, carpet weaving in Fars and Kashan, the radif of Persian music and the passion play ta’zieh. Some of them are described on the pages on festivals and holidays and Iranian handicrafts.