Source: CCTV.com

04-14-2009 09:04

While the concept of Cultural Heritage naturally entails ancient buildings, relic sites, and tombs, it also extends to include heritage routes. This idea, which was raised recently at the China Cultural Heritage Forum, is not entirely a novelty. Spain's Pilgrim's Route to Santiago de Compostela was among the earliest entries to the UNESCO's World Heritage list in Cartagena in 1993.

While the concept of Cultural Heritage naturally entails ancient buildings, relic sites, and tombs, it also extends to include heritage routes.
While the concept of Cultural Heritage naturally entails ancient buildings,
relic sites, and tombs, it also extends to include heritage routes.

A heritage route is composed of tangible elements, the cultural significance of which comes from exchanges and a multi-dimensional dialogue between countries or regions. The elements left behind illustrate the interaction of movement, along the route, in space and time.

Examples abound in China: the ancient Silk Road, Jinghang Grand Canal, and the Tea-Horse route.

This is the Wuxi section of the Jinghang Grand Canal the earliest and longest man-made canal in China. The Canal stretches over 17-hundred kilometers in length, and winds its way through six provinces. It's regarded as a "Man-made Wonder" by the World Heritage Committee and the International Council on Monuments and Sites. As an important means for commercial transportation, the Canal has generated a brisk development of the cities it runs past.

Examples abound in China: the ancient Silk Road, Jinghang Grand Canal, and the Tea-Horse route. 
Examples abound in China: the ancient Silk Road, Jinghang Grand Canal,
and the Tea-Horse route. 

The fifty-kilometer-long Wuxi section, for example, contains more than sixty protected sites of cultural relics. Cultural tourism along the route is boosted with three newly-opened museums and four docks among the attractions.

Shan Jixiang, the director of National Cultural Relics Bureau said, "Heritage routes reflect the continued and all-round exchange in materials, spirit and knowledge among the people. And protection will greatly boost the development in economic, cultural, and social harmony. "

The Wuxi Government has drafted plans to protect the historic and cultural districts along the routes. Similar protection has been launched in Gansu, Xinjiang, Guangdong and other places.

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Editor:Zhao Yanchen