World Heritage Sites — North America

World Heritage in North America and the Caribbean

This map runs from Greenland to Panama — 123 sites across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean islands. The US list is mostly national parks: Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Everglades, Olympic, Redwood, Great Smoky Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Hawai'i Volcanoes, and the Okefenokee, added in 2026. The cultural ones are fewer but good: Mesa Verde, Cahokia, Chaco Canyon, Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Monticello, Taos Pueblo, and eight Frank Lloyd Wright buildings counted as one site.

Canada's 22 include the Rocky Mountain parks, Gros Morne, L'Anse aux Meadows, Old Québec, the Rideau Canal, and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Mexico has 36, the most in the Americas: Teotihuacan, Chichén Itzá, Palenque, Monte Albán, Calakmul, and a remarkable run of colonial city centers — Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Morelia, Zacatecas, Querétaro.

The islands

The Caribbean adds a string of colonial fortresses and old towns — Old Havana, San Juan, Cartagena's cousin in Santo Domingo, Bridgetown, Willemstad, Brimstone Hill on St Kitts — and the Pitons on St Lucia. Bermuda's St George and Greenland's three sites (Ilulissat Icefjord, Kujataa, Aasivissuit–Nipisat) are here by geography rather than by flag. Click a badge or its pin to mark a site visited, again for want-to-go.

The American gaps

For a country with its heritage infrastructure, the United States has a short list — 26 sites, fewer than Sweden — largely because it stopped nominating for most of the 1990s and 2000s and withdrew from UNESCO twice. The result is that a lot of obvious candidates aren't listed: no Yosemite-sized cultural icon for the 20th century beyond the Wright buildings, nothing in New England besides Independence Hall, and none of the Civil War or civil-rights sites. The Tentative List, which is where future nominations wait, includes Ellis Island, the Civil Rights Movement sites, and Big Bend, so the American count should grow again in the coming sessions.