UNESCO World Heritage Sites (India)
India's full list of UNESCO World Heritage properties — cultural, natural and mixed. This is the one circuit here whose complete membership is published, authoritative and free, so it's treated as a closed set rather than a curated selection.
Significance & tradition
UNESCO inscription recognizes a site's 'outstanding universal value' on cultural or natural heritage grounds — an external, formally documented assessment rather than a religious or popular-fame claim, a different and more institutional kind of 'verification' than the mythological circuits above.
History
India's first sites were inscribed in 1983, and the list has grown steadily since, spanning periods from the 3rd century BCE (Ashokan-era monuments) through the Mughal era and into the 20th century, most recently the Hoysala temple ensemble and Santiniketan, both inscribed in 2023.
How this list was compiled
Cross-City Audit (Circuits): the previous version of this circuit listed only 11 sites and was marked non-exhaustive, when India in fact has well over forty inscribed properties and the full list is a genuinely closed, externally published set — 'the one circuit whose complete membership is published, authoritative, machine-readable and free.' Rebuilt from the official UNESCO World Heritage List (whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/in). Newer inscriptions after this list was compiled won't be reflected automatically — re-check against the official list periodically rather than treating this as permanently exhaustive.