UNESCO and Related Topics

37th General Assembly of UNESCO in 2013, Paris.

Cultural diversity

Quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural evolution.

Countries ranked by ethnic and cultural diversity level (James Fearon, 2003).

Harmony Day is dedicated to celebrating Australia's cultural diversity.

At the international level, the notion of cultural diversity has been defended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization since its founding in 1945 by various countries.

Cultural heritage

Heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations.

The Grandfather tells a story, by Albert Anker, ca. 1884.

Karl von Habsburg, on a Blue Shield International fact-finding mission in Libya

Plaque stating the designation of Carthage as a World Heritage Site.

Emblem used to clearly identify cultural property under protection of the Hague Convention of 1954, regarding cultural property during armed conflicts.

United Nations, UNESCO and Blue Shield International deal with the protection of cultural heritage.

Adult literacy rates, 2015 or most recent observation

Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use.

World illiteracy has halved between 1970 and 2015

Literate and illiterate world population between 1800 and 2016

Illiteracy rate in France in the 18th and 19th centuries

Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, circa 2600 BC

Adult literacy rates have increased at a constant pace since 1950.

Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions over the last twenty-five years.

Gender parity indices in youth literacy rates by region, 1990–2015. Progress towards gender parity in literacy started after 1990.

Youth and adult literacy rate, 2000–2016 and projections to 2030

Students in grade 2 who can't read a single word

Brain areas involved in literacy acquisition

Integrating Common Core content into language training with MELL

Sample covers of completed authorship created books

Most illiterate persons now live in Southern Asia or sub-Saharan Africa.

Native youth in front of Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania c. 1900

Young school girls in Paktia Province of Afghanistan

Three Laotian girls sit outside their school, each absorbed in reading a book they received at a rural school book party.

The University of Peradeniya's Sarachchandra open-air theatre, named in memory of Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Sri Lanka's premier playwright.

In 2018, UNESCO includes "printed and written materials" and "varying contexts" in its definition of literacy; e.g. "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts".

The main UNESCO building as viewed from the Eiffel Tower

World Heritage Centre

UNESCO Headquarters, or Maison de l'UNESCO, is a building inaugurated on 3 November 1958 at number 7 Place de Fontenoy in Paris, France, to serve as the headquarters for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

United Nations

Intergovernmental organization whose purpose is to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.

1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the UN original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states

The UN in 1945: founding members in light blue, protectorates and territories of the founding members in dark blue

Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active secretary-general from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Kofi Annan, secretary-general from 1997 to 2006

Flags of member nations at the United Nations Headquarters, seen in 2007

Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet general secretary, addressing the UN General Assembly in December 1988

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, demonstrates a vial with alleged Iraq chemical weapon probes to the UN Security Council on Iraq war hearings, 5 February 2003

Current secretary-general, António Guterres

The ICJ ruled that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law.

Under Sukarno, Indonesia became the first and only country to leave the United Nations.

A Nepalese soldier on a peacekeeping deployment providing security at a rice distribution site in Haiti during 2010

The UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus was established in 1974 following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1949

Three former directors of the Global Smallpox Eradication Programme reading the news that smallpox has been globally eradicated in 1980

In Jordan, UNHCR remains responsible for the Syrian refugees and the Zaatari refugee camp.

The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize to the UN—diploma in the lobby of the UN Headquarters in New York City

Marking of the UN's 70th anniversary – Budapest, 2015

The UN System includes a multitude of specialized agencies, funds and programmes such as the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF.

Member states of UNESCO

, UNESCO members include 193 member states and 11 associate members.

Paris

Capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² , making it the 34th most densely populated city in the world in 2020.

The Palais de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle, viewed from the Left Bank, from the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (month of June) (1410)

The Hôtel de Sens, one of many remnants of the Middle Ages in Paris

The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, by Jean-Pierre Houël

The Panthéon, a major landmark on the Rive Gauche, was completed in 1790.

The Eiffel Tower, under construction in November 1888, startled Parisians — and the world — with its modernity.

General Charles de Gaulle on the Champs-Élysées celebrating the liberation of Paris, 26 August 1944

Western Paris in 2016, as photographed by a SkySat satellite

Anti-terrorism demonstration on the Place de la République after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, 11 January 2015

The Hôtel de Ville, or city hall, has been at the same site since 1357.

A map of the Greater Paris Metropolis (Métropole du Grand Paris) and its governing territories

The Élysée Palace, official residence of the President of the French Republic

The Palais-Royal, residence of the Conseil d'État

Police (Gendarmerie) motorcyclists in Paris

Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, 1897, Hermitage Museum

Paris and its suburbs, as seen from the Spot Satellite

West of Paris seen from Tour Montparnasse in 2019

City proper, urban area, and metropolitan area population from 1800 to 2010

The Eiffel Tower and the La Défense district

Employment by economic sector in the Paris area (petite couronne), with population and unemployment figures (2015)

Median income in Paris and its nearest departments in 2018 (high income in red, low income in yellow)

Tourists from around the world make the Louvre the most-visited art museum in the world.

The Passage Jouffroy, one of Paris's covered passages

The Axe historique, pictured here from Concorde to Grande Arche of La Défense

Pierre Mignard, Self-portrait, between 1670 and 1690, oil on canvas, 235 x, The Louvre

Auguste Renoir, Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876, oil on canvas, 131 x, Musée d'Orsay

Salah Zulfikar and Sabah in Paris and Love (1972)

Le Zimmer, on the Place du Châtelet, where Géo Lefèvre first suggested the idea of a Tour de France to Henri Desgrange in 1902

Les Deux Magots café on Boulevard Saint-Germain

Magdalena Frackowiak at Paris Fashion Week (Fall 2011)

Republican Guards parading on Bastille Day

The main building of the former University of Paris is now used by classes from Sorbonne University, New Sorbonne University and other autonomous campuses.

The École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), France's most prestigious university in the social sciences, is headquartered in the 6th arrondissement.

The French Open, played on red clay, is one of four Grand Slams in professional tennis.

The Gare du Nord railway station is the busiest in Europe.

The Paris Métro is the busiest subway network in the European Union.

In 2020 Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport was the busiest airport in Europe and the eighth-busiest airport in the world.

A view of the Seine, the Île de la Cité and a Bateau Mouche

The lawns of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont on a sunny day

The Passerelle de l'Avre, crossing the Seine and establishing a link between the Bois de Boulogne and Saint-Cloud in Hauts-de-Seine, is the City of Paris's westernmost point.

The Paris Catacombs hold the remains of approximately 6 million people.

The Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, the oldest hospital in the city

Agence France-Presse Headquarters in Paris

Column dedicated to Paris near the Baths of Diocletian in Rome

Sculpture dedicated to Rome in the square Paul Painlevé in Paris

The historical district along the Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991; popular landmarks there include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire.

The rainforest in Fatu-Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, is an example of an undisturbed natural resource. Forest provides timber for humans, food, water and shelter for the flora and fauna tribes and animals. The nutrient cycle between organisms form food chains and foster a biodiversity of species.

Natural heritage

Natural heritage refers to the sum total of the elements of biodiversity, including flora and fauna, ecosystems and geological structures.

An important site of natural heritage or cultural heritage can be listed as a World Heritage Site by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO.

Julian Huxley

English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist.

English Heritage blue plaque at 16 Bracknell Gardens, Hampstead, London, commemorating Julian, his younger brother Aldous, and father Leonard

Julian Huxley
British Army Intelligence Corps 1918

Huxley with his two sons, Anthony and Francis

Huxley lights a cigarette under his grandfather's portrait, c.1935.

He was secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, the president of the British Eugenics Society (1959-1962), and the first President of the British Humanist Association.

The Great Temple of Ramesses II (left) and the Small Temple of Hathor and Nefertari (right).

Abu Simbel

Historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel , Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan.

The statue of Ramses the Great at the Great Temple of Abu Simbel is reassembled after having been moved in 1967 to save it from flooding.

A scale model showing the original and current location of the temple (with respect to the water level) at the Nubian Museum, in Aswan

Nefertari offering sistrums to seated goddess Hathor, frieze inside the Small Temple

alt=Geneva architect, Jean Jacquet, a Unesco expert, makes an architectural survey of the Great Temple of Rameses II (1290–1223 B.C.).|Genevese architect Jean Jacquet, a UNESCO expert, makes an architectural survey of the Great Temple of Rameses II (1290–1223 BC)

View of the partially excavated Great Temple from the right, with a human figure for scale

Front view of the Great Temple before 1923

Interior of the Great Temple, before cleaning

Interior of the Great Temple, after cleaning

Human figures standing at the entrance to the Great Temple, sometime before 1923

The collapsed colossus of the Great Temple supposedly fell during an earthquake shortly after its construction. On moving the temple, it was decided to leave it as the face is missing.

A close-up of one of the colossal statues of Ramesses II wearing the double crown of Lower and Upper Egypt

The Small Temple from below and left, before 1923

Westernmost Colossus, 1850 by Maxime Du Camp

Earliest photo, 1854 by John Beasley Greene

Facade of the Temple of Ramesses II, photo taken in 2007

Close-up of the leftmost statue at the temple of Rameses II

Central, inset statue of Ra-Horakhty at the Great Temple

Baboon carvings above the heads of the statues of Ramses at the Great Temple

View of the Great Temple from the west, photo credited to William Henry Goodyear (before 1923)

Facade of the Great Temple from before 1923

View of the rightmost statue at the Great Temple, partially excavated, with a human figure (possibly William Henry Goodyear) for scale

View of the Great Temple's colossal statues from the right, partially excavated

Colour photo of the Great Temple from the right, partially excavated, from before 1923

The Great Temple from the right, from before 1923

Abu Simbel temple, four statues of divinities inside the inner sanctuary

Frieze inside the Great Temple of Abu Simbel

Earliest photo of Smaller Temple, 1854 by John Beasley Greene

The gods Set (left) and Horus (right) blessing Ramesses in the small temple at Abu Simbel

Stele adjacent to smaller temple, 1854 by John Beasley Greene

The Small Temple in its relocated context, 1999

Ramesses offering to seated god Ptah. Frieze inside the Small Temple.

Inscription at the entrance to the Great Temple. Hooper Brooklyn Museum Archives

The Small Temple in context, before relocation. Goodyear Brooklyn Museum Archives

Statues in the sanctuary of the Great Temple

Interior of Nefertari's (queen's) temple at Abu Simbel, with graffiti

View of the Nile from Abu Simbel, before 1923. Brooklyn Museum Archives

The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Nubian Monuments", which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan), and include Amada, Wadi es-Sebua, and other Nubian sites.