Explore the full list of over 1,000 UNESCO World Heritage sites, broken down by country.

The United Nations recognized eight Frank Lloyd Wright works as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

As of 2023, there are about 1.1 billion objects stored in 73 of the world's largest natural history museums, but only about 16% of specimens are available in digital archives.

Reimagine damaged cultural sites from around the world

NeoMam art studios created animated GIFs restoring six endangered World Heritage sites to their original glory. These include Hatra, a fortified city in Iraq, and Nan Madol, an island site in the northwest Pacific. These landmarks are designated as at risk due to threats like earthquakes and conflict in the regions. Enjoy some of the beautifully restored landmarks with this brief article.

National Geographic's list of best places to visit in 2023

National Geographic has released its latest Best of the World list with 25 must-see destinations for 2023 from Alberta, Canada, to Busan, South Korea.

The National Parks System includes 63 parks and 400 smaller preserved sites

Want to see how close you are to one of the major preserves or lesser-known historic sites? Explore this interactive map from the National Park Service to plan your next adventure to protected, historic land.

51 must-see attractions in Barcelona

Planning a trip to Barcelona? Check out this comprehensive list of the city’s most iconic sites. It’s organized from most well-known to least, so if you’re pressed for time, the authors recommend concentrating on the top of the list.

America's most underrated places to visit

The United States is vast, with beautiful and fascinating cultural hubs, landmarks, and natural wonders to fill a lifetime of travel. These landmarks can be well-known and top everyone's bucket list, or they can fly under-the-radar. Here's a list of...

A massive list of wildly specific museums

The definition of a museum varies depending on who you ask and where you find yourself. Need proof? Check out this list of over 80 museums—dedicated to niche interests like hand fans, hovercrafts, and celebrity leftovers (really).

National parks require numerous items of interest

To be designated a national park, an area must have various scenic, inspirational, educational, and recreational items of interest. A national monument designation requires only one item of interest and is usually reserved for smaller areas with particular historical, cultural, and/or scientific relevance.

193 nations are members of the United Nations

The UN's Member States webpage provides an alphabetical list of all 193 member countries, along with the exact dates they were admitted. Take a look at how the UN has expanded over time and understand each nation's place in the global organization.

The 100 greatest cinemas in the world

Sure, it's convenient to stream a movie at home, but we believe there's no better way to see a great film than at a great theater. This extensive list explores the best of the best, featuring profiles of a Pennsylvania drive-in, an Icelandic arthouse, and many other amazing venues.

Explore a database of more than 220,000 shipwrecks, the largest compilation to date.

Explore the Museum of the World

This collaboration between the British Museum and Google presents an interactive timeline showing artifacts from five world regions. Go back in time and learn about each item from the museum.

People spent more than a billion hours visiting National Park System sites in 2025, which include national parks, monuments, seashores, and more.

Some vacationers flock to the sites of tragedies

Auschwitz, Chernobyl, Gettysburg, and more have all become tourist destinations, despite the horrible events that have occurred at the sites. The phenomenon is sometimes called "dark tourism," a trend that seems to be spurred by interest in history, morbid curiosity, and popular culture (like HBO's series "Chernobyl").

An inventory of ancient trees in the United Kingdom

The world is filled with trees that are hundreds—if not thousands—of years old, and the UK's Woodland Trust believes each one deserves the same protections great cathedrals and castles receive. This active database invites users to peruse...

An immersive curation of the world's rock art

A living archive of humanity’s ancient art and symbols, our shared history that is embedded as rock art and cave art in the landscape

Stonehenge was part of a continent-wide "henge" boom

While Stonehenge is the most famous, it was one of roughly 1,300 henges built across prehistoric Europe. This piece from the British Museum situates Stonehenge within the broader ceremonial tradition.

Why only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still exists

Greek writers recorded lists of great structures that were later codified by Renaissance writers. The definitive list includes the Colossus of Rhodes, the Giza Pyramid (the only existing one today), the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Visualizing the symbols and history of world flags

More than 200 world flags feature high-intent designs, projecting ideals and values to the world through archetypal symbols, colors, and shapes. This page effectively depicts the data behind symbol and shape usage, how much each country's flag has changed over time, the most popular colors used, and more in a series of elegantly simple charts.

The UN’s interactive site analyzing the world’s population

The 2022 revision of World Population Prospects contains the official population estimates and projections from the United Nations. It presents population estimates from 1950 to present for 237 countries or areas around the world. The data consider...

Take a tour of the Museum of Natural History

Opened in 1910 on the Mall, the National Museum of Natural History is among the Smithsonian's oldest museums. Its scientists steward more than 148 million objects and specimens—making it the largest natural history collection on Earth.

The National Parks System is a popular attraction in the US

More than 16 billion people have visited the US National Park System since 1904. Curious about how something like World War II affected park visitation? This table of annual recreational visits spans the early 20th century through 2023, demonstrating the slow-but-steady rise in visitors over the decades.

Wikipedia's sister sites include directories of travel guides, species, and media

Like Wikipedia, volunteers around the world contribute to Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, and Wikimedia Commons to create freely accessible repositories of knowledge. Other projects include Wikibooks, a collection of e-books and annotated texts; Wikisource, which features source documents and historical texts; and Wiktionary, a dictionary covering over 170 languages.

The 15 most beautiful caves in the United States

The United States is home to more than 45,000 caves, including many with National Parks designation, like Wind Cave (in South Dakota) and Carlsbad Caverns (in New Mexico). This list of the 15 best isn't just for spelunkers—all of these sites are available for more typical tourists, so long as they have a good pair of shoes.

The beauty of the Earth in 80 photos

The world is full of beautiful landscapes, creatures, and scenes. Here's a gallery of 80 incredible photos with explanatory captions to deepen your appreciation for the diverse wonders of Earth.

An interactive sound map of 8,000 locations around the world

Cities and Memory's global sound map covers 140 countries, featuring paired recordings: original field captures of a moment in time and an artist's recomposition built from the same source. The structure treats every location as both document and raw material, giving 2,500 contributors the same prompt with unpredictable results.

The world’s most beautiful cinemas

Oakland, Madrid, and Mexico City are home to some of the most beautiful movie theaters in the world according to this extensive list. This resource compiles photos and interesting tidbits from 50 stunning cinemas, located in historic buildings and glistening modern structures.

The American Battle Monuments Commission maintains 26 overseas military cemeteries in 16 countries

The cemeteries honor more than 218,000 American war dead, with the majority of sites located in France and Belgium, where some of the heaviest fighting of both World Wars took place.

Explore a map of global native lands

This interactive map visualizes Indigenous territories across the world. Users can search by location, language, or tribe to explore the histories, cultures, and present-day communities connected to specific lands.

Wildlife use Rome's sprawling archaeological sites as urban havens

The Italian capital features some of the world's most famous monuments as the inheritor of ancient Rome's grandeur. This photo essay explores the city's vibrant collection of wildlife, including long-concealed native crabs, peregrine falcons, and the beaver-like nutria.

See a gallery of art and architecture at New York City's UN building

The group's nearly 200 member states have contributed art and cultural experiences to the New York campus since the building's founding in 1950. This gallery hosts hundreds of photos of the art on the premises.

View a map of countries with the safest and most dangerous drinking water

More than a quarter of the world's population lives in water-stressed countries, and a similar number use contaminated drinking water sources, which can lead to widespread disease, according to the World Health Organization. The Environmental Performance Index shows which countries have safe drinking water.

Mapping tourism at Machu Picchu

Only 750 people lived at Machu Picchu at its height, but today, almost ten times that number trample through its delicate plazas and agricultural terraces every day. This data visualization vividly illustrates the skyrocketing numbers of visitors to Machu Picchu over the decades, and highlights the risks of over tourism, including soil erosion and other environmental threats, and negative social and economic impacts.

10 controversial World Cup moments

If you're expecting a staid back-and-forth, then you'll be surprised by the World Cup, which is often filled with high drama and even higher tensions. This list highlights how controversy has been a constant on soccer's biggest stage, influencing outcomes, sparking debates, and sometimes leading to rule changes.

Machu Picchu is an ancient Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, abandoned for centuries before its rediscovery in 1911.

Explore a worldwide ranking of smart cities

This interactive site evaluates residents' perceptions of the infrastructure and technologies available to them across 146 cities to produce a ranking based on a Smart City Index. Users can utilize the City Comparison feature to compare their city with others around the world.

See the most famous Bauhaus sites

The Bauhaus school had a profound impact on 20th-century architecture, from the Zentrum Paul Klee in Switzerland to the Poli House in Israel. This list from Artsy shows you eight of the most important Bauhaus buildings, including the school's second location in Dessau, Germany.

Ten impact craters you can visit

See photos of ten wild Earth impact craters across the world, the result of impacts occurring between thousands and millions of years ago.

The world's 10 best places to live

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index ranked 173 cities based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The report shows an overall increase in livability scores compared to previous...

The Smithsonian is the world's largest museum complex

With 21 museums and the National Zoo, the Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum complex. Eleven of those museums sit directly on the National Mall, and all offer free admission to the public.

Hosting the World Cup requires massive investments in infrastructure

Since the 1990s, those costs have crept into the billions. Cities are able to sell the high price tag with promises of jobs and tourism dollars, but long-term studies showed the promises were often overstated.

See ten of the most amazing Mayan ruins

Hidden beneath the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Maya temples, pyramids, and cities reveal the civilization’s vast construction ambitions. Decades of archaeology have uncovered these sites, which are explored in detail in this guided video tour of 10 significant ruins.

A look at some of the world's most unique churches

From a skeleton-adorned church in the Czech Republic to wooden churches built without nails in Russia, this video explores some of Christianity's most intriguing architectural feats. These places of worship were built in remote areas throughout history, and show amazing innovation. See a fascinating glimpse into the overlooked structures, along with stories of how and why they came to be.

Explore more than 7,000 of the world's languages

Google collects open-source data on languages, detailing how many known speakers each language has, whether its endangered, and where in the world it is spoken.

As of 2025, Wikipedia is one of the top 10 most-visited sites in the world

Alphabet Inc.'s Google search engine and YouTube received nearly 150 billion combined visits in November, followed by Facebook, ChatGPT, and Instagram, which each received over 5 billion visits during the same span. With 4.42 billion visits for the month, Wikipedia ranked just behind Reddit's 4.85 billion.

A gallery of places without addresses on Google Street View

Google Street View records billions of images of streets across the world. Within those photos are many "unplaces," locations that appear to have some purpose or former history but do not have an address. This site curates some of those images and seeks further information from users. You can peruse the odd, fascinating locations spread across both rural and urban areas.

The booming fossil industry on the Jurassic Coast

Ever since the Jurassic Coast was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001, professional and amateur fossil-finders have increasingly set out for its craggly cliffs to discover ammonites, icthyosaurs, and even new discoveries. This photo essay takes a human look at the growing interest and industry in fossil discoveries along the famed 95-mile strip of England.

Explore how close you live to some of the most contaminated places in the US

Known as Superfund sites, these toxic locations undergo long-term cleanup to remove hazardous waste, protect health, and restore land for safe reuse. As of 2025, the EPA lists around 1,300 active Superfund sites on its National Priorities List, with more than 450 cleaned and removed since 1980.

Explore three of the world's most iconic deserts

Investigate the Gobi Desert in Central Asia, the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan, and the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa as you learn about the wildlife and people that call these places home. Click through images of the Gobi Desert, which—located in...