A beauty contest where it helps to be huge, old, and falling apart? Forget the knee-jerk rejection of such a seeming impossibility; designation as a UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site has been a kind of beauty contest since 1972 and its "winners" offer a world-wide inventory of culturally and naturally significant sites "of outstanding value to humanity."

Still sound a bit too much like a quote from the personality portion of a Ms. World Pageant? We'll let our quick-list of a few of the many World Heritages sites convince you otherwise.

Apollo's Turkish Baths
Hierapolis-Pamukkale in Pamukkale, Turkey

The Old City of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

Sandcastle of Dreams
Aït-Ben-Haddou in Morocco

Stairway to Heaven
Borobudur in Central Java, Indonesia

Olinda, Gift of the Portuguese
Historic center of Olinda in Olinda, Brazil

Keeping it Nouveau
The townhouses of architect Victor Horta in Brussels, Belgium

Old Cuban Coffee
Archaeological landscape of the first coffee plantations in Sierra Maestra, Southeast Cuba

Handprints of History
Cueva de las Manos in the Patagonian region of Argentina

The Bright Side of East Germany
Garden kingdom of Dessau-Worlitz in Dessau, Germany

Follow the Yellow Dirt Road
Frankincense Trail in Dhofar Province, Omar

The "Beautiful City"
The complex of monuments in Hue, Vietnam

More Than Just Hamlet's Home
Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark

The Knights of Malta Live On
The city of Valetta in Malta

The Rock of Ages
Mont-Saint-Michel in the Gulf of Saint Malo, France

Island of Apartheid
Robben Island, South Africa