BERLIN: The UN cultural agency on Sunday designated Hamburg’s historic maritime warehouse and business districts, boasting early 20th century German brick architecture, as World Heritage sites.

The “Speicherstadt”, the world’s largest historic warehouse complex, is a district of connecting roads, canals and bridges dating from 1885 to 1927, lined with red-brick office buildings.

Covering 26 hectares (64 acres) in the heart of the northern German city’s bustling port area, its Gothic red-brick warehouses once stored high-value goods, such as coffee, spices and tobacco, Unesco said.

As well as its architecture, it has more recently become a centre for tourism in Germany’s second biggest city, as well as a draw for innovative businesses or eateries.

Opposite stands the “Kontorhaus” office district in Hamburg’s old town, built in the 1920s and 1930s, which Unesco also listed at its meeting in the German city of Bonn Sunday.

It includes the “Chilehaus” which resembles a ship’s bow and, according to Unesco, “represents the most significant artistic and architectural achievement of German Brick Expressionism”.

“It strongly influenced brick architecture of the 1920s and 1930s in Northern Europe and is also one of Germany’s first high-rise buildings,” it said in a statement.

The Chilehaus was built between 1922 and 1924 by Fritz Hoeger.

Unesco’s World Heritage Committee said the two districts were examples that “illustrate significant stages in human history”.

France’s winemaking region of Champagne and a part of Burgundy have been granted “world heritage status” by the United Nations, giving a boost to the country’s drive to encourage tourism and revive its flagging economy.

France is already the world’s most visited country, welcoming 84 million tourists last year. The Eurozone’s second-largest economy is looking to the tourism industry, which employs some 2 million people, to help kick-start growth.

Last month, the government announced a fund intended to boost everything from hotels to heritage sites.

At a meeting in Bonn, Germany, Unesco also granted world heritage status to sites including the Diyarbakir Fortress in Turkey and two sites in Denmark.

In Burgundy, Unesco recognised the Climats, vineyards on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune south of the city of Dijon. “The site is an outstanding example of grape cultivation and wine production developed since the High Middle Ages,” it said.

Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin welcomed the decisions, which take France to 41 sites on the world heritage list, including two other winemaking regions, Saint Emilion and Bordeaux.

Unesco has “brought amply deserved recognition to these two regions, which have learnt how to preserve and value their cultural and natural patrimony,” said Pellerin.