The Landscape includes protected or listed monuments of the industrial processes, transport infrastructure, workers' housing and other aspects of early industrialisation in South Wales.

[1] Blaenavon was an important centre of coal mining and iron making in South Wales during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[3] The area is an excellent example of an industrial landscape formed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by mining and iron making activities.

[2] Other elements of the Industrial Landscape are the mines and quarries from which coal, iron ore, fire clay and limestone were extracted.

Wrought iron was taken from the forge to Llanfoist on the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal for transport to other parts of Britain and the world.

[5] A 33 square kilometres (13 sq mi) area of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in December 2000.

In 2013, retrospective statements of Outstanding Universal Value were added to the listing: The boundary of the property, defined by historical land ownership, landscape features and exclusion of areas that lack historical authenticity, includes the main monuments of the mining and iron working settlement, in remarkably good condition, and the remains of mine, quarry and transport infrastructure.

Since then there has been extensive work on conserving the ironworks, Big Pit and other historic elements of Blaenavon and the surrounding landscape.

The Landscape is managed by the Blaenavon Partnership, which involves various authorities, agencies and other bodies and is led by Torfaen County Borough Council.

[7] Architects Purcell Miller Tritton won the Gold Medal for Architecture at the National Eisteddfod of Wales of 2008 for their work on the World Heritage Centre for visitors.