Old Town Lunenburg

British planners drew Lunenburg's rectangular grid in the home country in 1753, and the town on Nova Scotia's Atlantic shore still follows it — the best-preserved planned British colonial settlement in North America. Generations of shipwrights and fishing families have kept its brightly painted wooden houses, some dating to the 18th century, in daily use rather than behind glass. UNESCO listed Old Town Lunenburg as World Heritage in 1995.