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Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

This park, formerly called Uluru (Ayers Rock – Mount Olga) National Park, features spectacular geological formations that dominate the vast red sandy plain of central Australia. Uluru, an immense monolith, and Kata Tjuta, the rock domes located west of Uluru, form part of the traditional belief system of one of the oldest human societies in the world. The traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta are the Anangu Aboriginal people.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/447

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is a striking physical landscape that contains two rock formations which contrast sharply with the surrounding sand plains and desert. The area holds numerous sites sacred to the local Aboriginal people, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara.

The park was first accepted as a natural WHS in 1987. Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (Mount Olga) are isolated remnants left after the slow erosion of an original mountain range. The Uluru rock was originally sand, deposited as part of an extensive alluvial fan. The layers of sand were nearly horizontal when deposited, but were tilted to their near vertical position during a later episode of mountain building. Uluru rock is 348m high, and a further two-thirds of it is beneath the sand. The 36 domes of Kata Tjuta are composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock consisting of cobbles and boulders of varying rock types.

In 1994 Uluru-Kata Tjuta was renominated under cultural criteria, to be recognized as a cultural landscape. It illustrates the combined works of nature & man by making use of the physical constraints and opportunities of the landscape. It also is an associative landscape via the spiritual relationship the Aboriginal owners have with the land. About 80 people still live inside the park and survive by hunting and gathering.

In 1985, the Australian government returned ownership of Uluru to the local Aborigines, with one of the conditions being that they would lease it back to the National Parks and Wildlife agency for 99 years and that it would be jointly managed. 

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/ulurukatatjuta.html