Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks

Two contrasting Himalayan sanctuaries form one property in Uttarakhand: the Valley of Flowers, famed for meadows of endemic alpine blooms, and the rugged high wilderness around Nanda Devi. Spanning a transition zone between the Zanskar and Great Himalaya ranges, they shelter the snow leopard, Asiatic black bear, brown bear and blue sheep, and have drawn mountaineers, botanists — and Hindu legend — for far longer than a century. UNESCO inscribed the parks in 1988.