10 of the World’s Most Endangered Monuments

For the past 60 years, the conservation organization World Monuments Fund has campaigned to protect some of our most important international heritage sites. More than 700 culturally-significant sites across 112 countries worldwide have benefited from the fund’s work, which not only raises awareness for the need to continue to safeguard them, but also raises money to repair and protect them in partnership with local communities.

Since the mid-1990s, the fund has created a biennial list based on nominations from around the globe of the most pressingly endangered cultural locations, and the 2025 WMF list features 25 different locations across five continents (and beyond). Here’s what you need to know about 10 of them.

1. The Chapel of the Sorbonne // France
2. The Great Trading Path // United States
3. The Historic Lighthouses of Maine // United States
4. The Terracotta Sculptures of Alcobaça Monastery // Portugal  
5. The Erdene Zuu Buddhist Monastery // Mongolia 
6. Cinema Studio Namibe // Angola 
7. The Belfast Assembly Rooms // United Kingdom 
8. The Swahili Coast Heritage Sites // East Africa 
9. Noto Peninsula // Japan 
10. The Moon

The Chapel of the Sorbonne // France

Paris’s Sorbonne is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and its 17th-century chapel, the Chapelle Sainte-Ursule de la Sorbonne, is arguably one of its most exquisite buildings. Over its long history, the chapel has been the pet project of Cardinal Richelieu, was looted, vandalized, and severely damaged in the French Revolution, and more recently became the site of a memorial to students and teachers of the university who lost their lives for France during the Second World War. The centuries took their toll, however, and the chapel has been closed for around 25 years “due to structural and conservation issues,” according to the WMF, which says that its inclusion on the list  “marks the beginning of a new chapter for the building.” 

The Great Trading Path // United States

The Great Trading Path, or Occaneechi Path, was an important trade route that for centuries connected the Indigenous peoples of America’s southeast corner. By the late 1600s, the path ran from what is now Petersburg, Virginia, down to Charlotte, North Carolina, then split into two paths in South Carolina. Along its route lay several sacred sites and meeting places, surviving segments that remain vitally important to America’s Occaneechi community to this day. As time passed, portions of the trail were turned into wagon routes and eventually paved roads. The WMF is now highlighting calls among the Occaneechi to preserve what remains of the trail, and raise public awareness of its role in uniting the Indigenous peoples of the area.

The Historic Lighthouses of Maine // United States

Almost 70 historic lighthouses are scattered across the rocky Atlantic coast of Maine, the oldest of which—the Portland Head Light on Cape Elizabeth—first illuminated the surrounding oceans way back in 1791. Unfortunately, our changing climate, and the increasingly turbulent coastal environment resulting from it, are now posing significant threats to these extraordinary landmarks; the Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest-warming marine regions in the world, and is currently warming at three times the average global rate. Working with the group Maine Preservation, WMF hopes “to assemble light station stewards across Maine to exchange strategies and resources for climate adaptation and inspire broader public conversations around the future of coastal communities and their heritage.” 

The Terracotta Sculptures of Alcobaça Monastery // Portugal  

Founded in 1153, the Monastery of Alcobaça, located around 100 miles south of Lisbon, is home to an extraordinary collection of unique terracotta sculptures dating from the 1600s and 1700s. These sculptures were made using a novel technique in which local clay was baked into hollow blocks called tacelos that were then stacked and finished in situ to create extraordinarily detailed sculptures that were massive in scale. But the tacelos have proven to be devastatingly susceptible to changes in temperature and humidity, causing them to deteriorate. The Monastery of Alcobaça is already a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so the WMF’s work aims to continue to preserve what remains of the Alcobaça sculptures, while giving local artisan potters the training needed to conserve and restore them.

The Erdene Zuu Buddhist Monastery // Mongolia 

Mongolia had been a Buddhist nation for centuries before the founding of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924 transformed the nation into a Soviet satellite state. Religious freedoms were suppressed and Buddhist structures were destroyed. Miraculously, the Erdene Zuu monastery survived. Built in in the late 16th century by Altan Khan, it is now the oldest monastery in Mongolia—but decades of disrepair and new threats from a changing climate have led to calls for its continued preservation in 2025. The WMF hopes its inclusion on the list will “galvanize support to preserve a remarkable specimen of Mongolia’s Buddhist history and support local professionals to ensure the protection of their heritage for posterity.”

Cinema Studio Namibe // Angola 

Arguably one of the most futuristic and bizarre-looking structures on this year’s list, the Cinema Studio Namibe is a modernist cinema building in the Angolan port city of Moçâmedes in southeast Africa. Construction of the cinema—which has a remarkable, partly open-air design created by the Portuguese architect José Botelho Pereir—began in 1973. When civil war broke out in Angola just two years later, however, work on the project promptly stopped, and the cinema has remained incomplete ever since. The WMF aims to reignite interest in completing its construction, turning it at long last into the cultural community hub it was always intended to be.

The Belfast Assembly Rooms // United Kingdom 

Local assembly rooms have long acted as civic meeting points in the UK, and the Belfast Assembly Rooms, which date back to the 1760s, are no exception. In the 250 years or so since then, the rooms have played host to several significant events in the city—including a monumental vote in 1789 that saw the rejection of a new slave-shipping business in Belfast, following pressure from the Belfast Women’s Anti-Slavery League (founded by one of Ireland’s fiercest abolitionists, Mary Ann McCracken). The rooms have sat vacant for several years now, but calls to renovate the Belfast Assembly Rooms have recently been gaining momentum, with the WMF now backing a local campaign to transform the building into a museum dedicated to the Northern Irish Troubles and the peace accord that brought them to an end.

The Swahili Coast Heritage Sites // East Africa 

The eastern coastal areas and islands of Africa are a blend of African, European, Indian, and Arab influences. With the world’s climate changing, however, sites along the coastlines of Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique—as well as the nearby Comoros islands—are under serious threat from rising sea levels, increased rainfall, and ever greater surges from storms in the Indian Ocean. The WMF is hoping to “mobilize expertise and resources to address these interlinked challenges through an approach that strengthens both physical resilience and social fabric through targeted interventions across the region.”  

Noto Peninsula // Japan 

On January 1, 2024, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake (and several powerful aftershocks) struck the Noto Peninsula in western Japan, triggering wildfires, land liquefaction, and a tsunami. More than 450 people were killed, and a staggering 136,000 buildings were destroyed—including many locally significant historical structures. This corner of Japan has a documented history dating back almost 6000 years, and the WMF aims to lead “a series of community-driven preservation projects in the Noto Peninsula to catalyze the region’s recovery and resilience.”

The Moon

By far the most unusual entry on this year’s list, the WMF has highlighted the need to protect the heritage landscape of the moon—including Neil Armstrong’s footprints—in an era of ever-increasing interest in commercial space travel.

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