Nearly 40 UK locations have put themselves forward to be considered for World Heritage Site status, according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Tourism minister John Penrose has published a list of applications for the country's Tentative List of the 38 sites looking to be included in the UK's submission of candidates to UNESCO in 2011.

Among the sites bidding is the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter; Historic Lincoln; Merthyr Tydfil, Wales; Offa's Dyke on the Anglo-Welsh border; and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.

Brunel's Great Western Railway; Chatham Dockyard and its Defences, Kent; the Dover Strait; Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester; the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads and the Lake District are also included.

An independent panel will now assess each bid in order to determine the sites that will be submitted to UNESCO. Stonehenge and Bath are already among the UK's existing World Heritage Sites.

Penrose said: "Any list that includes Jodrell Bank, the Forth Bridge, Blackpool and the Turks and Caicos Islands certainly doesn't lack variety.

"But what all 38 sites have in common is a wow factor and a cultural resonance that makes them real contenders to sit alongside The Pyramids and Red Square in this most distinguished of gatherings."

Image: The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads is one of the candidates – Natural England/Dougall McNeill