Rio celebrates with light the 14th anniversary of being declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The Rio de Janeiro City Hall is celebrating this month the 14th anniversary of the inscription of the "Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea" site on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). To mark the date, between July 1st and 5th, the Rio Heritage of Humanity Institute (IRPH), Rioluz, and the Municipal Secretariat of Conservation, in partnership with the Copacabana Palace, the Belmond Hotel, and the Christ the Redeemer Sanctuary, will promote special lighting at some of the city's main landmarks. The Christ the Redeemer Monument, the Lapa Arches, and the Copacabana Palace will be illuminated in green and blue, in reference to the sea and the mountain.

This achievement established Rio de Janeiro as the first large urban area to receive international recognition in the Urban Cultural Landscape category. The designation acknowledges the unique, harmonious, and creative relationship between the lush natural landscape and the urban development that has unfolded over the centuries.

 

— Celebrating 14 years of this title reaffirms the municipality's ongoing commitment to the management of our cultural and environmental assets. The special lighting on the city's main landmarks is a visual tribute to this collective heritage and a reminder that preserving this patrimony is a source of pride for all of us — highlights Laura Di Blasi, president of IRPH.

 

The area recognized by UNESCO encompasses fundamental landmarks of Rio's visual and cultural identity, including Tijuca National Park, the Botanical Garden, Corcovado with Christ the Redeemer, Flamengo Park, Copacabana beachfront, the entrance to Guanabara Bay, Copacabana Fort, and Sugarloaf Mountain. The initiative connects the South Zone and the city center in a single visual tribute circuit, bringing together locations that bear witness to the city's urban and cultural evolution.

 

With this initiative, the Municipal Secretariat for Urban Development and Licensing (SMDU) and IRPH reinforce the conservation actions developed over the last 14 years and the planning guidelines that guarantee the sustainable development of the city without altering the landscape that has earned Rio international recognition. A recent example is the revitalization of the Arcos da Lapa, an investment of R$ 1,7 million that restored the grandeur of the 18th-century monument, listed by IPHAN, and included technical cleaning, painting, structural recovery, and the revitalization of Praça Cardeal Câmara.

 

— The Lapa Arches, besides being the greatest engineering work of colonial Brazil, are the great surviving monument of the urban transformations of downtown Rio. We maintain a continuous technical cycle of conservation, with stages in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2022 and now in 2026, respecting the IPHAN (National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage) listing and using the same technique as the original construction: whitewashing with quicklime, which allows the stone to breathe, unlike common paint, eliminating moisture and preserving the original characteristics. A city without memory is a dead city — says the municipal secretary of Conservation, Diego Vaz.

 

What was the process like that led to this unprecedented title in the world?

The Nomination Committee was coordinated by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan), with the collaboration of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall, the State Government, and the Ministry of the Environment, through the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation. The nomination dossier was submitted to the World Heritage Committee in September 2009. After the analysis period, on July 1, 2012, during the 36th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in St. Petersburg, Russia, Rio de Janeiro received the title of World Heritage Site as a Cultural Landscape. The inscription was officially registered on July 5, 2012.

 

The concept of Cultural Landscape was incorporated by UNESCO in 1992 as a new way of recognizing cultural assets. Rio de Janeiro, however, broke a paradigm by becoming the first large, dynamic urban area in the world to be included in this category. Until then, the recognized sites were rural areas, historical gardens, small urban centers, or traditional agricultural systems.

 

The city also boasts other sites recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. The Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site, in the Port Region, received the title in 2017 for representing the main port of entry for enslaved Africans in the Americas and preserving a sensitive memory of human history. The Roberto Burle Marx Site, in Barra de Guaratiba, was inscribed in 2021 as a Cultural Landscape for embodying the innovative concept of a modern tropical garden and inspiring the region's economic vocation.

Category:

• City
• Conservation and Public Services
• Urban and Economic Development
• IRPH
• News
• Rioluz

2 July 2026

Appointments: Valongo pier Copacabana Palace IPHAN Tijuca National Park Christ the Redeemer Sanctuary UNESCO