In 1978, when Unesco published its first list of protected places, there were just 12 World Heritage Sites.

These included:

The Galapagos Islands and Quito (both in Ecuador);

Yellowstone National Park and Mesa Verde National Park (both in the US);

L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park and Nahanni National Park (both in Canada);

The Simien National Park and the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela (both in Ethiopia);

Krakow and the Wieliczka and Bochnia Salt Mines (both in Poland);

Île de Gorée in Senegal and

Aachen Cathedral in Germany.

Now there are 1,031, including a Fray Bentos meatpacking plant in Uruguay, as of July last year.

But which countries can boast the greatest number of World Heritage Sites? Where should you start if you - like one tour operator proposed back in 2013 - want to visit every single one?

As the map above shows, Italy, China, Spain and France are the four nations with the most - possessing 51, 48, 44 and 41 respectively.

Yellowstone, one of the first World Heritage Sites Credit: berzina - Fotolia

This should come as no suprise. France is the most popular country in the world, with Spain not far behind, China is the most populous, and Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance.

Countries with the most world heritage sites Cultural Natural Mixed Italy 47 4 0 China 34 10 4 Spain 39 3 2 France 37 3 1 Germany 38 3 0 Mexico 27 5 1 India 25 7 0 UK 24 4 1 Russia 16 10 0 USA 10 12 1

But there are some other countries whose impressive collection of sites might surprise. Ethiopia, which attracts fewer than 1m overseas visitors a year, has nine, South Korea has 12 (considerably more than Egypt, Argentina or Indonesia), while Bulgaria has nine.

At the other end of the scale, Myanmar and Paraguay have just one each, Cambodia, Iceland and Ireland two, and New Zealand - voted the world's best country in the 2014 Telegraph Travel Awards - just three sites.

Burma has just one site recognised by Unesco

Of the five regions Unesco uses, Europe and North America has the most world heritage sites, with 420 cultural, 61 natural and 10 mixed sites.

The Arab states have the least, sharing 79 sites - 33 per cent of which are under threat.

Number of sites by UNESCO region Cultural Natural Mixed Europe & North America 420 61 10 Asia & the Pacific 168 59 11 Latin America & the Caribbean 93 36 5 Africa 48 37 4 Arab States 73 4 2

Sites in Africa and the Middle East are the most threatened, according to Unesco - with both regions having 16 sites under threat.

Experts have warned about the threat to sites in Syria, for example. Isis has destroyed world heritage sites in the past, such as the blowing up of the Baalshamin Temple at the Palmyra World Heritage site.