Pride and Joy

On my travels, I've always envied ancient sites that have been accorded World Heritage status. Apart from the prestige and glamour, these sites also have access to conservation funds and skills of foreign experts. Yesterday on 7th July 2008, two historic cities in my beloved Malaysia were jointly inscribed as cultural World Heritage sites: Malacca and Penang.

From the UNESCO World Heritage website...

Monday, July 7, 2008

The World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec City has added eight new cultural sites to UNESCO’s World Heritage List on the morning of the 7 of July. With these inscriptions, Papua New Guinea and San Marino enter the World Heritage List for the first time.

The new sites inscribed are:

Melaka and George Town, historic cities of the Straits of Malacca (Malaysia) have developed over 500 years of trading and cultural exchanges between East and West in the Straits of Malacca. The influences of Asia and Europe have endowed the towns with a specific multicultural heritage that is both tangible and intangible. With its government buildings, churches, squares and fortifications, Melaka demonstrates the early stages of this history originating in the 15th-century Malay sultanate and the Portuguese and Dutch periods beginning in the early 16th century. Featuring residential and commercial buildings, George Town represents the British era from the end of the 18th century. The two towns constitute a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.