With changes taking place in social and economic conditions, a growing number of ancient ethnic traditions, cultures, customs, modes of living and environments are suffering from increasing serious threats of destruction.

On November 6, 1972, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its 17th session adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. In 1976, UNESCO set up the World Heritage Committee, an inter-governmental cooperative body, under the Convention. The committee is responsible for including cultural and natural treasures of outstanding universal value on the World Heritage List.

World heritage is divided into three types: natural, cultural (including cultural sites) and the combination of natural and cultural heritage. All sites on the World Heritage List receive financial and technical aid. In the meantime, they become better known worldwide and are protected by pressure from the international community.

China ratified the Convention in 1985, becoming a contracting party, and became a member state of the World Heritage Committee on October 29, 1999. In 1986, China began to identify and nominate sites on its national territory to be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List. So far, the number of its sites on the List has reached 33.

Definition of Cultural Heritage

1. Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

2. Groups of buildings：groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

3. Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view.

Definition of Natural Heritage

Natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from an aesthetic or scientific point of view;

Geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation;

Natural sites, or precisely delineated natural areas, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.

Criteria for Being Included in the World Heritage List

To be included on the World Heritage List, sites must satisfy the selection criteria. Revised regularly by the World Heritage Committee, the criteria have evolved to match the evolution of the World Heritage concept itself.

Criteria for Cultural Heritage

The criteria for inclusion of cultural properties on the World Heritage List should always be seen in relation to one another and should be considered in the context of the definition set out in Article 1 of the Convention.

A monument, group of buildings or site which is nominated for inclusion on the World Heritage List will be considered to be of outstanding universal value for the purpose of the Convention when the Committee finds that it meets one or more of the following criteria and the test of authenticity. These criteria are defined by the Committee in its Operational Guidelines. Each property nominated should:

i.represent a masterpiece of human creative genius; or

ii.exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design; or

iii.bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared; or

iv.be an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history; or

v.be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement or land-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change; or

vi. be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance (the Committee considers that this criterion should justify inclusion in the List only in exceptional circumstances and in conjunction with other criteria cultural or natural).

Criteria for Natural Heritage

A natural heritage property - as defined in Article 2 of the Convention - which is submitted for inclusion in the World Heritage List will be considered to be of outstanding universal value for the purposes of the Convention when the Committee finds that it meets one or more of the following criteria specified by Operational Guidelines and fulfilling the conditions of integrity set out below. Sites nominated should:

i.be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features; or

ii.be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals; or

iii.contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance; or

iv.contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.