1. Exploring Heritage 

Imagine you have a treasure box filled with valuable things that your grandparents or great-grandparents used to love and cherish. These treasures could include old photographs, beautiful jewellery, or even family recipes for delicious meals. All these precious things are part of your heritage! Let’s learn about something very special called ‘heritage’. 

Heritage is something that we inherit from the past. It includes the wonderful things passed down to us by our ancestors and families. These could be art, craft, music, traditions, stories, monuments, and even special items that hold significant importance for our communities.1 

Vid: 1.1: What is Heritage?2

Fig 1.2: Different aspects of heritage 

1. What is UNESCO World Heritage?

UNESCO stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It is an international organisation made up of people from many countries who work together to protect important heritage around world.3

UNESCO helps to protect and preserve heritages that are very valuable and have historical, cultural, or natural significance. These special heritages are listed or recorded under UNESCO World Heritage Sites.3 

World Heritage can be broadly divided into two main categories: 

Fig 1.3: Division of World Heritage

1. Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage refers to significant aspects of the past, such as special objects, old buildings, museums, and places that are valuable in different ways. These things have special meanings because they are connected to history, art, culture, science, and how people lived in the past. There are two types of cultural heritage.5