The small Saxon town of Herrnhut, originally a settlement of the Moravian Brethren, has been designated Germany’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The decision was announced by the UN Educational, Scientific, Cultural and Communication Organization (UNESCO) committee on Friday at its 46th meeting in New Delhi, India.

Herrnhut is the birthplace of the “Herrnhut Unity of Brethren”, an Evangelical Brethren more commonly known as the Moravian Church in English.

Religious refugees from Moravia (a territory is the eastern part of modern day Czech Republic) had founded the village in Upper Lusatia in 1722. 

At that time, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760) had made the land available to the Protestant refugees from Moravia for settlement. As the story goes, on June 17th 1722, a carpenter named Christian David felled the first tree to build the new settlement under the “Herrn Hut”, or Lord’s Watch. 

The Brethren from Herrnhut later spread worldwide, and missionaries from the village brought their blueprint for new settlements to other countries.

For example, Christiansfeld in Denmark – already recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015 – was based on the layout of Herrnhut. 

Herrnhut has joined the UNESCO rankings via a transnational application: The city in East Saxony sought recognition together with Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the United States and Gracehill in Northern Ireland.

READ ALSO: 10 things you never knew about the German state of Saxony

As of 2023, Germany had 52 World Heritage Sites.

Herrnhut makes 53, and a decision on another German site is expected on Saturday: Schwerin and its castle on an island in the lake, as well as other parts of the city centre, have also applied to join the World Heritage List.

The state capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has been on Germany’s list of proposals for ten years.

Of the country’s 50+ heritage sites just three of them are categorised as natural sites. These include the ancient Beech forests and the Wadden Sea.

The vast majority of Germany’s world heritage sites are centred around landmarks of historical significance, such as the roman monuments in the city of Trier, the Baroque palace in Würzburg, or the palaces and parks of Potsdam.

READ ALSO: 10 must-see UNESCO World Heritage sites in Germany

The high density of UNESCO sites in the Bundesrepublik made it an ideal start point for a YouTube video creator who attempted to set the world record for most world heritage sites visited in a 24 hour period in 2016.

That record has since been broken: in 2021 a couple from the Netherlands successfully set the Guinness World Record by visiting 23 UNESCO world heritage sites in a 24 hours.