Blue and John Crow Mountains

Declared in 1993 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2015 — Jamaica's first site on the mixed cultural and natural list — it protects the Blue and John Crow Mountains, whose steep and impenetrable terrain served through the 17th and 18th centuries as a refuge for the Maroons, communities of African slaves who escaped the plantations and set up autonomous settlements in the mountains, successfully resisting repeated British military expeditions until they forced peace treaties recognising their freedom and territorial independence — a chapter of Afro-descendant resistance reckoned fundamental to Jamaican national identity. The region is also the home of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, among the most prized in the world, grown on these slopes since the 18th century.