Abstract: Taking world heritage information on the official website of the UNESCO World Heritage Center as data source, statistical methods were used to analysis the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and inscription criteria of the world heritage properties. The results indicated that: ①the total amount of the world heritage showed continuous linear growth in the past near 40 years; ②the world heritage properties number had experienced 3 periods during 1978-2016: the initial stage with no significant regularity (1978-1988), the development stage with rapid growth (1989-2000) and mature stage with a tend to be stable (since 2001); ③the world heritage sites are mainly distributed in Western Europe countries, followed by East Asian countries in the Asia Pacific region. With the deepening development of international consensus and cooperation on world heritage, the spatial distribution of world heritage will tend to be balance in the word; ④86.60% of world heritage sites were inscribed in the world heritage list meeting less than 3 criteria, only 3.80% of them were inscribed with 5-7 criteria, none of the world heritage sites meet over 8 criteria. The diversification of world heritage connotation will receive more and more attention.