Quito has the largest, least-altered, and best-preserved historic center in the Americas. This center was, together with the historic center of Kraków in Poland, the first to be declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on 18 September 1978. The Historic Centre of Quito is to the south of the capital's current center, on an area of , and is one of the most important historic areas in Latin America. There are about 130 monumental buildings (which host a variety of pictorial art and sculpture, mostly religiously-inspired, in a multi-faceted range of schools and styles), and 5,000 properties registered in the municipal inventory of heritage properties.