The boundary of the Word Heritage Property of Rome follows the perimeter of the walls built by the Emperor Aurelian in the third century, with the extension represented by the Gianicolense walls built by Pope Urban VIII in 1643 to defend the slopes of Monte Gianicolo.
Since 1990, in the Property area have been included some the Holy See properties within the city walls and the Basilica of San Paolo outside the walls, in the Ostiense district.
The extension of the UNESCO site of Rome (Site n°91ter) is 1,469.17 hectares, of which 1,430.8 relating to the Italian part (Historic Centre of Rome) and 38.9 pertaining to the Holy See.
Rome is therefore a cross-border property, that is, it falls under the law of several States. In this case the Italian State as regards the central city area and the Holy See for the ecclesiastical properties located in the city and for the Basilica of San Paolo outside the walls.
The Vatican City is in turn a distinct World Heritage Site (Site n ° 286), whose extension is 44 hectares and whose borders follow those of the Vatican City State (for the perimeter of the Unesco Site Vatican City see Interactive Map).
Mappa Perimetro Sito UNESCO 2009
Mappa Perimetro Sito UNESCO 2015
Buffer Zone (Zona cuscinetto)
The definition process within UNESCO.
The UNESCO Convention has always taken into great consideration the protection of the boundary areas around the World Heritage Properties, as an instrument of greater protection and enhancement of the sites themselves.
The provision of a Buffer zone was explicitly encouraged by the WH Committee as early as 2005.
Starting with the edition updated in 2019, the Operational Guidelines indicate the creation of a Buffer zone, around the Properties’ Core zone, as part of the essential documentation for their inclusion in the Tentative List.
Sites that had not submitted a proposal for a Buffer zone at the time of inscription, are now invited to do so, as part of the Minor Modification Boundary application procedure.
Operational Guidelines 2019 ed.
The Transboundary Coordination Group, which constitutes the governance body of the UNESCO property of Rome, through a complex process of defining the founding criteria and a careful analysis of the urban and regulatory characteristics of the territory, has provided for the design of a Buffer zone that embraces the entire perimeter of the site, for a total of 7,158.93 hectares: 7,152.19 he pertaining to Italy and 6.74 he to the Holy See.
Following, as foreseen by the Operational Guidelines, a process of “Minor Boundary Modification“, the Dossier concerning the Buffer zone of the Rome, accompanied by annexes, graphic apparatus, overall map (scale 1: 60,000) and detailed maps (scale 1: 25,000), has been submitted to the WH Committee for approval.
The process was concluded in September 2023 when, during the 45th Session of the World Heritage Committee held in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), the Buffer zone for the UNESCO Site of Rome was finally approved (Decision 45COM 8B.72).
Following the endorsement of the new Buffer zone, the site ‘Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura’ acquires the designation Property No. 91quater.
