7 Areas Gain U.N. Protected Status

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  Norwegian fjords and a South African meteorite crater that is the world’s oldest and largest were among seven natural wonders added Thursday to the United Nations’ list of protected World Heritage sites.

The additions were made at the 29th session of the U.N. Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee in Durban, South Africa.

The vast crater southwest of Johannesburg was formed when a massive meteorite crashed into Earth about 2 billion years ago. The Vredefort Dome is about 155 miles wide, spanning two provinces.

Geirangerfjord and Naeroyfjord are part of the western Norwegian fjord landscape, which stretches along the coast from Stavanger in the south to Andalsnes, about 310 miles northeast. The two fjords are among the world’s longest and deepest.

Thursday’s additions also include Wadi Hitan, or Valley of the Whales, in Egypt’s western desert. The site contains fossil remains of the earliest and now extinct suborder of whales, the archaeoceti. The site represents a major step in evolution: the emergence of the whale as an oceangoing mammal from a formerly land-based life.

Also added were Japan’s Shiretoko peninsula area on Hokkaido island; 244 Mexican islands, islets and coastal areas in the Gulf of California; Thailand’s Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex; and Panama’s Coiba National Park, comprising 39 islands and their surrounding marine area in the Gulf of Chiriqui.