Cinque Terre

Village World Wonders, World

The Cinque Terre are a jagged stretch of coast of the eastern Ligurian Riviera, in which there are five villages or, as they were called in ancient times, lands, listed here from west to east: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore. Since 1997 they have been part of the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, with the following motivation: Thanks to the geographical and anthropic characteristics of the territory where they arise, the Cinque Terre are considered one of the most suggestive Italian coastal attractions, due to their naturally rugged and rugged hilly orographic context, softened by the construction of terraces or bands for cultivation, which descends towards the sea with steep slopes; at the points where the sea snakes its way into the earth, the villages arise, articulated to follow the natural shape of the hills. The work of man, over the centuries, has shaped the territory by building the famous terraces on the slopes towards the sea, due to the particular agricultural technique aimed at exploiting as much as possible the land placed on a steep slope that slopes down towards the sea, has made it so one of the most characteristic and fascinating landscapes of Liguria. In 1997, at the request of the province of La Spezia, the Cinque Terre, together with Porto Venere and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto, were included among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.