Introduction to World Heritage Sites

Definition: A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that is on the list maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term. A world heritage site is a place of either cultural or physical significance.

 
Definition of Cultural Heritage  
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.
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.

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 topographical 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 of outstanding universal value are from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.
 
Nominating process
A country must first take an inventory of its significant cultural and natural properties. This is called the Tentative List, and is important because a country may not nominate properties that have not already been included on the Tentative List. Next, it can select a property from this list to place into a Nomination File. The World Heritage Centre offers advice and help in preparing this file.
At this point, the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the World Conservation Union evaluates the file. These bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. The Committee meets once per year to determine whether to inscribe each nominated property on the World Heritage List, and sometimes defers the decision to request more information from the country who nominated the site. There are ten selection criteria - a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list.
 
Ten selection criteria
Until the end of 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so that there is only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of "outstanding universal value" and meet at least one of the ten criteria.
Cultural criteria
I. "to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius";
II. "to 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";
III. "To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared";
IV. "To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history";
V. "to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change";
VI. "to 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 preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria.)
Natural criteria
VII. "To contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance";
VIII. "To 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";
IX. "To 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";
X. "to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-site conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation."
 
Introduction to world heritage sites in China
China ratified the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1985, becoming a contracting party. Since joining the International Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. China has 37 world heritage sites to date; of these 26 are cultural heritage sites, 7 are natural heritage sites, and 4 are cultural and natural (mixed) sites, ranking third in the world. Since 2004, China has made the first large-scale renovations on 6 world cultural heritage sites in Beijing - the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the "Peking Man" site at Zhoukoudian, all of which were planned for completion before 2008. In addition, China has a rich non-material cultural heritage. Kunqu Opera and the art of playing the guqin, a seven-stringed zither, are among UNESCO's list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The ancient Naxi Dongba literature manuscripts have also been inscribed on the World Heritage List. In 2001, UNESCO listed the Chinese Tibetan epic, King Gesar, the longest epic in the world, in the world millennium memorials.