After more than a year of consideration by the UN cultural committee, the Forth Bridge has finally been awarded the coveted Unesco World Heritage status. The Forth Bridge shares this status with only five other sites around the country, New Lanark, St Kilda, the Old and New Towns in Edinburgh, Neolithic Orkney and the Antonine Wall.

Around the world other such sites that have been awarded the same status include the Great Wall of Chine, the Pyramids of Eqypt and the Sydney Opera House.  The World heritage status is only given to those sites that offer ‘outstanding universal value’ with the aim of the status being to protect these valuable sites for future generations to enjoy.

The bid for World Heritage status was led by the Forth Bridges Forum, which was established by the Scottish government to promote the three Forth Bridges; the Forth Bridge itself, the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing which is due to open in 2016.

The rail bridge, designed by Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Bakerwhich, is 2,529 metres (8,296ft) long and 100 metres high, weighs 53,000 tonnes, and was the largest cantilever span in the world until 1917 when the Quebec Bridge in Canada was completed, although it continues to be world’s second-longest single cantilever span to this day.

Come back on Friday to find out more about this fantastic feat of engineering and the other World Heritage Sites in Scotland.

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