The UNESCO World Heritage Committee said Sunday it will add the "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution" to the World Cultural Heritage list, as well as eight historical sites in South Korea, including the Gongsan-Seong Fortress of the Baekje Dynasty, approved the day before.
Under the decision at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, the 23 facilities in eight Japanese prefectures will be listed as proposed by Japan, without any changes. They represent Japan's industrialization over just 50 years in the late 19th to early 20th centuries by rapidly adopting Western technologies.
South Korea earlier opposed adding the Japanese sites to the World Heritage list because Koreans had been forced to work at seven sites when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945.