Seven countries jointly submitted Nowruz for UNESCO’s 2009 inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The original submitting states were Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. Their joint nomination reflected the festival’s cross-border character rather than treating Nowruz as belonging to only one modern nation.
The inscription recognized shared customs such as family visits, festive meals, music, storytelling, gift-giving, and preparations for the new year. UNESCO later expanded the multinational element of the listing when additional countries joined the nomination in 2016.
A common mix-up is to confuse the number of original submitting countries with the later total associated with the expanded inscription. The answer here concerns the 2009 nomination specifically.