Historic City of Ayutthaya | Thailand

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Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom, founded in 1350. The second Siamese capital after Sukhothai. It was the capital of the country until its destruction by the Burmese army in 1767. Its remains, characterized by the prang (reliquary towers) and gigantic monasteries, give an idea of its past splendour.

The Wat Mahathat or Temple of the Great Relic, is a Buddhist temple in Ayutthaya.

Thx SL!

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Saltaire | United Kingdom

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Saltaire, West Yorkshire, is a complete and well-preserved industrial village of the second half of the 19th century. 

Its textile mills, public buildings and workers' housing are built in a harmonious style of high architectural standards and the urban plan survives intact, giving a vivid impression of Victorian philanthropic paternalism.

(source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1028)

Thank you very much Steve!

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The city of Dinant | Belgium

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The Citadel of Dinant is a fortress located on top of the mountain you see in the background. The citadel overlooks the city of Dinant and the Meuse river which runs through the town.

The Collegiate Church of Our Lady is a 13th-century Gothic cathedral.

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Historic Areas of Istanbul | Turkey

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Historic Areas of Istanbul is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

With its strategic location on the Bosphorus peninsula Istanbul has been associated with major political, religious and artistic events for more than 2,000 years.

The masterpieces of the city include the 6th-century Hagia Sophia and the 17th-century Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque).
(thank you Dustin for correct information)

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The city of Ségou | Mali

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Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa with 15 million inhabitants. Neighbored by Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Coted’Ivoire, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

With 135,000 inhabitants Ségou is the fifth-largest town in Mali. Located about 230 kilometres from capital Bamako.

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Church of Saint Francis of Assisi | Brazil

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The Pampulha Modern Ensemble was the centre of a visionary garden city project created in 1940 at Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Designed around an artificial lake, this cultural and leisure centre included a casino, a ballroom, the Golf Yacht Club and the São Francisco de Assis church. The buildings were designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, in collaboration with innovative artists.

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Struve Geodetic Arc | Finland

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The Struve Geodetic Arc is a chain of survey triangulations stretching from Hammerfest in Norway to the Black Sea, through ten countries and over 2,820 km. 

This helped to calculate the exact size and shape of the planet and marked an important step in the development of earth sciences and topographic mapping. Aavasaksa is one of the six measuring points that are located in Finland.

 

The Struve is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites since 2005.

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Rila Monastery | Bulgaria

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The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila, better known as the Rila Monastery is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. The monastery was founded in the 10th century, today housing around 60 monks. 

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Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro | Pakistan

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Mohenjo-daro is an archeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. The site is an ancient Indus Valley Civilization city that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE. It was discovered in the 1920s. 

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Tokyo, capital of Japan

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Tokyo is both the capital and most populous city of Japan, with over 13 million inhabitants. 

What makes the ‘perfect capital city card’ ? In my opinion a proper view of the city with name of the city on the foreground. So this card matches my criteria pretty much. But.. on closer inspection the card shows 'only' Nishi-Shinjuku, a skyscraper business district in Tokyo. Not sure if this is the 'best representation' of the city.

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International-letter-writing-week-stamp 2013.

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Harare, capital of Zimbabwe

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Harare is the capital of Zimbabwe. With 2 million inhabitants it is also the most populous city in the country. The capital Harare was formerly called Salisbury from 1890 in honor of the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. It was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence in 1982.

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Josiah Mushore Chinamano (1925 -1984). Special Heroes Stamp Issue (2016) to celebrate the lives of four Zimbabwean heroes.

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Rhodes Island | Greece

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Rhodes is the largest of the twelve Dodecanese islands located in the Aegean sea.

Throughout its long history the different people who settled on Rhodes left their mark in all aspects of the island's culture: art, language, architecture. Its strategic position brought to the island great wealth and made the city of Rhodes one of the leading cities of the ancient Greek world. The Medieval City of Rhodes is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Usually I only swap for "send from country of origin". But when arranging this swap, I might be blinded by the beauty of the view. So it was sent from Italy. 

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The Amalfi Coast | Italy

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The Amalfi Coast (Italian: Costiera Amalfitana) is a stretch of coastline on the southern coast of the Salerno Gulf in the Province of Salerno in Southern Italy. 

 

“Magically suspended between the blue sky and the iridescent colored sea, the Amalfi coast seems to be born from the palette of a painter who wanted to use the warmer color gradients for creating a landscape that enchants the visitor at the first shot.”

Costiera Amalfitana is a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

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Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps | Gemany

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Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps is a series of 111 prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) in and around the Alps. Built from around 5000 to 500 B.C. on the edges of lakes, rivers or wetlands. The "Pfahlbau” site in the German town of Unteruhldingen is a great example.

None of the original dwellings remained intact from this prehistoric time in Alpine Europe but the locations the people chose have provided one major benefit for us today. The waterlogged environments have protected the foundations and other relics that were left underwater when the inhabitants moved on. 

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Old Havana | Cuba

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La Habana Vieja, or Old Havana, is the historic heart of Cuba’s capital city and the largest colonial centre in Latin America.

Although it is today a sprawling metropolis of 2 million inhabitants, its old centre retains an interesting mix of Baroque and neoclassical monuments, galleries, churches and lively plazas.

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Karlskirche | Austria

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Vienna developed from early Celtic and Roman settlements into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles from three periods: Middle Ages, the Baroque period, and the Gründerzeit.

St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche) is a baroque church in Vienna. Widely considered the most outstanding baroque church in Vienna, as well as one of the city's greatest buildings.

The historic centre of Vienna is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg | France

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The Grande Île, meaning the Large Island, is located at the historic centre of the city of Strasbourg in France. The details on the card are from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg).

Strasbourg – Grande île is a Unesco World Heritage site. 

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Struve Geodetic Arc | Estonia

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The Struve Geodetic Arc is a chain of survey triangulations stretching from Hammerfest in Norway to the Black Sea, through ten countries and over 2,820 km. This helped to calculate the exact size and shape of the planet and marked an important step in the development of earth sciences and topographic mapping. 

The Struve is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites since 2005.

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The Great Wall | China

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The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China. To protect the empire against raids and invasions.

The Badaling section is the most visited section of the Great Wall and is located approximately 80 kilometres from Beijing city. This part of the wall was built in 1504 during the Ming Dynasty. 

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Historic Centre of Urbino | Italy

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Urbino is a walled city in the midwest of Italy. The town, located on a high sloping hillside, preserved much of its picturesque medieval appearance.

Historic Centre of Urbino is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  

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Shushi Liberation Day parade | Nagorno-Karabakh

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The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is located in the South Caucasus, between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Stepanakert is the capital and the largest city with a population of about 55,000. Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence in 1991 but is recognized only by three UN non-members: Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.

Towards the end of Soviet rule, Azerbaijani troops and Armenian secessionists started a bloody war which left the de facto independent state in the hands of ethnic Armenians when a truce was signed in 1994. Negotiations have so far failed to produce a permanent peace agreement.

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Van Nellefabriek Rotterdam | Netherlands

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Van Nellefabriek was designed and built in the 1920s on the banks of a canal in an industrial zone in Rotterdam.

The site is one of the icons of 20th-century industrial architecture, comprising a complex of factories, with façades consisting essentially of steel and glass. It was conceived as an ‘ideal factory’, open to the outside world, whose interior working spaces evolved according to need, and in which daylight was used to provide pleasant working conditions.

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The stamp is part of a set of 10 stamps about UNESCO sites from Netherlands. This one show’s Fort Spijkerboor, inscribed as “Defence Line of Amsterdam”.

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Historic City of Vigan | Philippines

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According to UNESCO, Vigan is the best-preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia. Dating back to the 16th century, Its architecture reflects the coming together of cultural elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe, resulting in a culture and townscape that have no parallel anywhere in East and South-East Asia.

 

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‘Fight of the Century’ Manny Pacquiao stamp, issued ahead of his long-awaited fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr in Las Vegas on May 2 2016.

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Cape Floral Region Protected Areas | South Africa

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Located at the south-western extremity of South Africa, the Cape Floristic Region is unmatched for flower power. This region has one of the highest densities of plant species. It contains an estimated 9 500 species, of which 70% do not grow anywhere else in the world. 

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Ancient City of Polonnaruwa | Sri Lanka

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Polonnaruwa was the second capital of Sri Lanka after the destruction of Anuradhapura in 993. The Polonnaruwa Vatadage is an ancient structure dating back to the Polonnaruwa Period of Sri Lanka.

The vatadage is an ancient type of Buddhist structure. Vatadages were built around small stupas for their protection, which often enshrined a relic or were built on hallowed ground. Only ten vatadages now remain in Sri Lanka. 

 

The Ancient City of Polonnaruwa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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