UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Slovakia

The ruins of Spiš Castle is one of the largest castle sites in Central Europe. The castle is situated above the town of Spišské Podhradie and the village of Žehra that with adjacent ecclesiastical town Spišská Kapitula form components of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2009, the site was extended to include the famous altar by Master Paul of Levoča and the historic centre of Levoča with many well-preserved Renaissance buildings.

Vlkolínec is a village under the administration of the town of Ružomberok in Slovakia. Historically, however, it was a separate village. The first written mention of the village came from 1376 and after 1882 it became part of Ružomberok. Its name is probably derived from the Slovak word "vlk", i.e. wolf.

Vlkolínec has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, and is one of ten Slovak villages that have been given the status of a folk architecture reservations. This status was granted because the village is an untouched and complex example of folk countryside architecture of the region of the Northern Carpathians.

Vlkolínec, situated in the centre of Slovakia, is a remarkably intact settlement with the traditional features of a Central European village. It is the region's most complete group of these kinds of traditional log houses, often found in mountainous areas. The village consists of more than 45 log houses each of them made up of two or three rooms. A wooden belfry from the 18th century as well as the baroque chapel have also been preserved. Houses No. 16 and 17 have been turned into a folk museum with all the instruments of daily life and work.

Bardejov is a small but exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a fortified medieval town, which typifies the urbanisation in this region. Among other remarkable features, it also contains a small Jewish quarter around a fine 18th-century synagogue.

Carpathian Wooden Churches is the name of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that consists of nine wooden religious buildings constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries in eight different locations in Slovakia. They include two Roman Catholic (Hervartov, Tvrdošín), three Protestant (so-called Articular churches in Hronsek, Leštiny, Kežmarok) and three Greek Catholic churches (Bodružal, Ruská Bystrá, Ladomirová) plus one belfry in Hronsek.

In addition to these churches there are about 50 more wooden churches in the territory of present-day Slovakia mainly in the northern and eastern part of the Prešov Region (see e.g. this map).