Talk:List of World Heritage Sites in Western Europe

Maps
I've placed all the maps down at the bottom of this page. I think it looks OK, but not great. One alternative is to use a Western Europe map which I've started in my sandbox. But everything ends up so pushed together that it's hard to read. This map also doesn't even include all the German sites, or any in France, UK or Ireland. Any thoughts?Tobyc75 (talk) 23:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * First of all thank you for completing the list! As for the map, did you try something like in the Africa list? Or even something like in List of World Heritage Sites in Oceania, which has a wikilinked map. IMO, for consistency all of the World Heritage Sites lists should use the same map style. Having all those country maps is not pretty since they are of different scale and style and don't show the distribution of sites within Western Europe. bamse (talk) 11:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Those maps have been on the article for a long time, so I think it's safe to say they can be removed. The map Toby made (version 1) would actually be a perfect candidate to be placed at the top of the article, maybe without the text though. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  20:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Somehow Toby's map looked different (without France, UK, Ireland) when I wrote my comment above. I'd change the dot color to something non-red in order to increase contrast. Also for some reason the dots are shifted, so that needs to be fixed. Not too happy about the Primeval Beech Forests as the dot is located outside of Western Europe (I understand that it corresponds to the coordinates given by UNESCO.), but don't have a good idea on how to improve it. bamse (talk) 22:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Bamse, I redid the map totally between the 2 times you looked at it, so that's why it looks different. You're not going crazy :).  I've tried it with a golden dot which I think looks better.  All the captions are removed and the dots are now wikilinks to the articles.  Not all the sites are on the map yet, so I or some one need to finish that.Tobyc75 (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. I also like the caption and the idea with national/trans-national dots. Just some nitpicking: i) some small countries (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco,...) are missing. ii) The grey of "no sites" appears not to be used at all, so why mention it (perhaps if small countries are added it will be used). iii) Perhaps make the legend more horizontal to save some vertical space. iv) As a general remark, if we are aiming for WP:FT, the map styles should be eventually unified among the different lists. bamse (talk) 10:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm impressed that you managed to create a pinpoint template for this! I would've suggested File:BlackDot.svg in order to standardise with the other lists, but then I guess if you want two colours that doesn't really work. One thing though (and this is probably a compatability issue with my browser), there are white squares around the dots... Is anyone else seeing that?  Night w   12:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Transparency just needs to be added around the image being used. Not a compatibility issue, don't worry. Either someone edits that dot or we could just use the classic black or red dots. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Another issue with the map is the colour legend. I think the change in colour from 11-20 to 21-30 needs to be more dramatic, and the colour for the colorbox for 0 sites is not correct. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing the white boxes around the points with either Firefox or IE8. As for the colors on the map, I thought I'd matched the colorbox for 0, but if you can see a difference and can figure out the correct RGB values that would be great.  I think the smaller black dots would match better, but does marking trans-national sites make sense?  There are a number of transnational sites in Europe, some of which span both Western Europe and either Eastern or Southern Europe, which makes the map look a bit strange.  The Beech forests of Slovenia, Ukraine and Germany especially look strange and I think marking it as a trans-national makes sense.Tobyc75 (talk) 21:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see white squares with either chromium or firefox on linux either. bamse (talk) 22:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I see them on Chrome, but no, not IE or Firefox (could it be a compatibility issue with .svg files?) When I tried it out in Firefox, every dot looked fine, so I suppose it makes sense to have them for multi-national sites. As for the colour, it should be good now. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  04:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not using the latest version of Firefox, so I guess it's a comp. issue. Don't really know what with though.  Night w   07:23, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Buffer zones?
Is the buffer zone necessary in the area column? I find it clutters the column and, frankly, I don't think it's pertinent to the viewer. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Buffer zones are listed in most of the other World Heritage Sites lists, so I thought it made sense to include them here as well.Tobyc75 (talk) 21:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am responsible for some of those lists and put buffer zones in there because... why not? There is space in that column and I don't think it looks all that ugly. Anyway, I don't feel strongly about this subject, so if a majority of editors decides to get rid of them, I won't be crying. bamse (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm a perfectionist. I don't really see what the significance of knowing what the buffer zone of a certain site is (the total area, however, gives viewers a sense of just how much land is being protected). I find that it looks much cleaner without, kind of why I left it out over at the Africa list. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  04:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't feel very strongly either way about the buffer zones. To me it looks good either way and listing them gives a bit of information that someone may find interesting.  What every the consensus is, I'll go with. Tobyc75 (talk) 06:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * re EricLeb: i) Is the first number in the table the "total area" or would we need to add the first number and the buffer zone number? ii) Is the buffer zone "protected"? bamse (talk) 17:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The first one is the total area without the buffer. And I figure that the buffer zone is protected as well, but it's really not that important. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to make sure, so we should just drop the buffer zone areas (not add the two numbers)? bamse (talk) 07:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sometimes UNESCO gives a buffer zone that is smaller than the protected area, so one is not included in the other.Tobyc75 (talk) 16:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Rhine Gorge
At Rhine Gorge page it is stated that it is a World Heritage Site, but it is not on this list. Where this can be doublechecked? --Jakubt (talk) 11:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅  Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:02, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Canterbury Cathedral - incorrect location?
Hi. I've noticed that Canterbury is actually to the northeast of London, yet the location listed by Geocode puts the cathedral site (UNESCO 1988) within Basingstoke. I've noticed slightly erroneous GPS locations for a few other sites. ~ AH1 (discuss!) 21:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for picking that up! We've actually simply copy-pasted the coordinates from the UNESCO page for the site; if the coordinates are off, we would not have noticed. I'm not in a position to actually go through them all and verify at the moment (and probably won't for a while now...), but you're welcome free to look up the position in something like Google Maps and change the coordinates accordingly. Actually, it would be of immense help seeing as none of us have gotten around to finishing up the article in a while... Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  22:36, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Description for 'Historic Center of Avignon'
I deleted the description for the site 'Historic Center of Avignon' since Avignon is obviously not an English town in the New World. I left reference No. 67 in place because the listed source apparently fits the topic. I have no idea about the history of Avignon so I can not replace the deleted part myself. Can anyone with more profound knowledge help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.110.123.35 (talk) 13:50, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Frontiers of the Roman Empire?
Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine wWll are clear enough but the link to Trajan's Wall reveals that structure to be in SE Europe, not in southern Germany which is mentioned in the table. Can anyone clarify the extent? cheers Geopersona (talk) 08:25, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

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The World Heritage sites for the UK and Ireland should be moved to Northern Europe.
UNESCO includes the UK in Northern Europe in several of the articles for the World Heritage Sites, many definitions of Northern Europe include the British Isles in it like the UNSD does, and it makes no sense for them to be an exception to the definitions of the regions of Europe when all the other lists follow the UNSD's one, especially since this cultural definition is unsourced, and the UK and Ireland do have cultural, historic and political connections to the Nordic countries. Vesperius (talk) 13:05, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Your claim that UNESCO includes the UK in Northern Europe is completely unfounded. Since you seem to be unable to stop bickering about the British Isles and Northern Europe, I will go into some detail here. The two examples you have given elsewhere, about Neolithic Orkney and Liverpool, do not prove anything at all about UK and the region Northern Europe. One thing is that they both use lowercase 'n' to indicate the geographical direction of north, not a more or less well-defined region.
 * Regarding Orkney: Orkney lies at approx. 59°N, well north of Denmark and Southern Sweden, and actually north of most findings of similar Neolithic remains in Scandinavia. It can be argued that Orkney and Shetland in many respects are closely connected to the other Atlantic Islands and to Scandinavia, but it does not necessarily follow that the same goes for England, not to mention the Channel Islands at approx. 50°N.
 * Regarding Liverpool: The link says that Liverpool was a major port for [...] emigrants from northern Europe to America. Yes, that is true. Lots and lots of people from Scandinavia came to Liverpool by ship in order to continue from there to the United States. That does not say anything about the regional placement of Liverpool, just as little as this article places Novgorod in Northern Europe, just because it lies on the ancient trade route between Central Asia and northern Europe.
 * Then some counterexamples: In this entry I find the sentence not only in Gdańsk, but also in many other towns of Northern Europe, here even with a capital 'N'. So this means that UNESCO places Gdańsk and hence Poland in the region of Northern Europe? Of course not! Just in this particular context.
 * From this entry I quote the major trading centre for northern Europe. Does this place Lübeck and hence Germany in the region of Northern Europe? Of course not! Just in this particular context.
 * Then in this entry we read a highly successful mercantile city of northern Europe. So Brussels and Belgium (and then necessarily the Netherlands and perhaps Luxembourg) are in the region of Northern Europe? Of course not! Just in this particular context.
 * And here we can read that the petroglyphs testifying to the lifestyle and beliefs of the Neolithic cultures present in Northern Europe (again capital 'N'). So the lake Onega area is part of the region Northern Europe? Of course not! Just in this particular context.
 * To sum up: UNESCO dos not divide Europe into regions (which I believe you have agreed to elsewhere). Specifically, UNESCO does not place the UK in the region of Northern Europe. So could you please stop claiming that they do?
 * And finally, just a small addition about your other claim all the other lists follow the UNSD. No, they do not. Some do, most do not. And the UNSD state explicitly on the top of their 'Methodology' page: The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations. Now could we have som peace here? --T*U (talk) 11:43, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I got it, we'll have peace. Vesperius (talk) 12:03, 12 January 2023 (UTC)