San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, along with the Alamo, has been nominated by the U.S. government for inclusion on the World Heritage List, which recognizes the most significant cultural and natural sites on the planet.

“World Heritage Sites represent an incredible opportunity for the United States to tell the world the whole story of America and the remarkable diversity of our people and beauty of our land,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in announcing the nomination. “The San Antonio Missions represents a vital part of our nation’s Latino heritage and the contributions of Latinos to the building of our country.”

Secretary Jewell credited former Secretary Ken Salazar, who visited San Antonio Missions in July 2012 to announce the department’s intention to move forward with the nomination, for playing a key role in making it possible.

This nomination will be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in the summer of 2015. If approved by the World Heritage Committee, it would join 21 sites in the United States already inscribed on the World Heritage List.

The UNESCO World Heritage List falls under the auspices of the World Heritage Convention, of which the United States was the prime architect. It is an international treaty for natural site conservation and cultural site preservation proposed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972; the United States was the first nation to ratify it.

There are currently 981 sites in 160 of the 190 signatory countries. The list includes such iconic places as the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge and the Great Barrier Reef, as well as Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park and the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

The Interior Department is undertaking the nomination with the full cooperation and written support of all the property owners within the boundaries of the nominated area, including the National Park Service, the State of Texas, the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, Bexar County, the City of San Antonio, the San Antonio River Authority, the Espada Ditch Company, the San Juan Ditch Water Supply Corporation, and Los Compadres de San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.

These owners, together with partner organizations, cooperated to prepare the nomination in consultation with the National Park Service’s Office of International Affairs, the principal technical agency for the U.S. Government’s participation in the Convention.

The nomination will be submitted through the U.S. Department of State to the offices of the World Heritage Centre in Paris, France. After reviews by World Heritage Centre staff and by the International Council for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), it will be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List by the World Heritage Committee, which is a rotating body of 21 nations elected from among the signatories of the World Heritage Convention.

Inscription as a World Heritage Site does not impose any legal restrictions on property owners or neighbors of sites, nor does it give the United Nations any management authority or ownership rights in U.S. World Heritage Sites, which continue to be subject only to existing federal and local laws. The agreement of the property owner is required by U.S. law in order for a site in this country to be nominated to the World Heritage List.

“The San Antonio Missions”

The San Antonio Missions are nominated under World Heritage cultural criteria (ii), (iii) and (iv) as the most complete and most intact example of the Spanish Crown’s efforts to colonize, evangelize, and defend the northern frontier of New Spain during the period when Spain controlled the largest empire in the world. Situated along a 7.7-mile stretch of the San Antonio River, these five Spanish colonial mission complexes were built in the early eighteenth century. The missions’ more than fifty standing structures, archaeological resources, and landscape features include labores, a rancho, residences, a grist mill, granaries, workshops, wells, lime kilns, churches, conventos, and perimeter walls for protection. The ensemble of missions includes extensive agricultural irrigation systems of acequias, dams, and an aqueduct.

The current World Heritage Sites in the United States, with the year of their inscription, are:

ALASKA

Wrangell-St. Elias and Glacier Bay National Parks and Preserves, with Kluane and Tatshenshini-Alsek National Parks and Reserve in Canada (1979)

ARIZONA

Grand Canyon National Park (1979)

CALIFORNIA

Redwoods State and National Parks (1980)

Yosemite National Park (1984)

COLORADO

Mesa Verde National Park (1978)

FLORIDA

Everglades National Park (1979)

HAWAII

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (1987)

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (2010)

ILLINOIS

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (1982)

KENTUCKY

Mammoth Cave National Park (1991)

MONTANA

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, jointly with Canada (1995)

NEW JERSEY/NEW YORK

Statue of Liberty National Monument (1984)

NEW MEXICO

Carlsbad Caverns National Park (1995)

Chaco Culture National Historical Park (1987)

Taos Pueblo (1992)

NORTH CAROLINA / TENNESSEE

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (1983)

PENNSYLVANIA

Independence Hall, part of Independence National Historical Park (1979)

VIRGINIA

Monticello and the University of Virginia (1987)

WASHINGTON

Olympic National Park (1981)

WYOMING / MONTANA / IDAHO

Yellowstone National Park (1978)

PUERTO RICO

La Fortaleza-San Juan National Historical Site (1983)