Wadi El Hitan, or the Whale Valley, was inaugurated on the 10th of February, 2008, by HE the First Lady of Egypt Suzanne Mubarak. This natural site, located in the Western Desert, is the first of UNESCO’s World Heritage List in Egypt and the Arab region.

The Minister of Environment has completed operations to develop the area to be a unique open museum. Wadi El Hitan is the most important site in the world to demonstrate one of the iconic changes that make up the record life on earth: the evolution of the whales that lived 40 years ago. It vividly portrays their form and mode of life during their transition from a land animal to a marine existence. It exceeds the values of their other comparable sites in terms of number, concentration, quality of its fossils, accessibility, and setting in an attractive protected landscape.