UNESCO World Heritage for Oman

UNESCO World Heritage Sites represent some of the best natural, cultural and historic attractions in world travel. Below are details of the 4 cultural, natural and mixed sites inscribed for Oman to date (a red World Heritage symbol denotes a site currently regarded as endangered). For more details of these properties, click on the links to the UNESCO website and the photographic galleries of these sites from OurPlace (where available) or see our highlights of Oman for descriptions. Also, check out UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage for Oman below.


1987 - Bahla Fort
1988 - Archaeological Sites of Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn
2000 - Land of Frankincense
2006 - Aflaj Irrigation Systems of Oman


Intangible Cultural Heritage

Recently UNESCO has begun to document the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage which includes "traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts". The current listings for Oman are shown below - click on the links for more details.


Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

2010 - Al-Bar’ah, music and dance of Oman Dhofari valleys
2012 - Al ‘azi, elegy, processional march and poetry
2012 - Al-Taghrooda, traditional Bedouin chanted poetry in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman