Entering its 11th rendition, the city\u2019s World Heritage Festival features educational and cultural activities to honor Texas’ only UNESCO World Heritage Site: the San Antonio missions.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s lineup includes a workshop to examine artifacts found at the area\u2019s missions, a reading of a play about a domineering Spanish matriarch, presentations from descendants of Indigenous people who lived and worked at the missions, a scavenger hunt and an outdoor mass.<\/p>\n
The events will extend from Sept. 9 through Sept. 13. Most are free, except for the walk, run or bike ride<\/a> through Mission Reach and Mission San Jos\u00e9 scheduled for Saturday. Participants can choose how far to travel, with options including a 5K or 10K for those on foot and 7 to 22 miles for bikers. The tour will end at Mission County Park Pavilion with food, artisans and music.<\/p>\n The events are set to span across the city\u2019s South Side — in locations including the World Heritage Center, Mission Park Pavilion and Missions National Historical Park — and the Alamo downtown. Some activities require pre-registration; check the\u00a0festival schedule<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n San Antonio hosted its first World Heritage Festival in 2016, the year after the World Heritage Committee added the city\u2019s five Spanish colonial Missions to its list of World Heritage sites. The local landmarks are\u00a0one of 26 qualifying locations in the U.S. They\u00a0sit on the list alongside\u00a0the Acropolis in Greece, the Taj Mahal in India, Machu Picchu in Peru and the Great Wall of China in China.<\/p>\n Last year, an estimated 1.55 million people visited Mission Concepci\u00f3n, Mission San Jos\u00e9, Mission San Juan and Mission Espada. The Alamo, which is state-owned and is not part of the federally-run park, draws about 1.6 million visitors each year.<\/p>\n Franciscan priests formed the San Antonio Missions in the early 1700s with the goals to settle and defend new territory that Spain had claimed and to convert local Indigenous people to Catholicism. The priests brought in people from hunter-gatherer groups including the Coahuiltecans and sought to make them into Spanish citizens by converting them to Catholicism, teaching them skills such as farming and masonry and introducing them to the Spanish language and culture.<\/p>\n