Blaenavon Industrial Landscape was added to the World Heritage List in 2000, the World Heritage Site brief description of Blaenavon is as follows;

‘The area around Blaenavon in evidence of the pre-eminence of South Wales as the world’s major producer of iron and coal in the 19th century. All the necessary elements can still be seen – coal and ore mines, quarries, a primitive railway system, furnaces, workers’ homes, and the social infrastructure of their community’.

The justification for its inscription is as follows;

‘The Committee decided to inscribe this property on the basis of Criterion ii and iv as the Blaenavon landscape constitutes an exceptional illustration in material form of the social and economic structure of the 19th century industry, the components of which together make up an outstanding and remarkably complete example of a 19th century industrial landscape’.