China: Xixia Imperial Tombs

Located in the foothills of the southern Helan Mountains in Ningxia, this necropolis is the imperial cemetery of the Xixia Dynasty. It includes nine imperial mausoleums, 271 subordinate tombs, a northern architectural complex, and 32 flood control structures. Founded by the Tanguts in 1038, the Xixia Dynasty lasted until its destruction by Genghis Khan’s Mongol army in 1227. Positioned along the Silk Road, it became a multicultural civilization modelled on Chinese imperial traditions, with Buddhism at its core. The property reflects the dynasty’s religious and socio-political legacy.

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China: City Walls of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (tentative)

Nanjing City Wall

 

China: Beijing Central Axis: A Building Ensemble Exhibiting the Ideal Order of the Chinese Capital

Running north to south through the heart of historical Beijing, the Central Axis consists of former imperial palaces and gardens, sacrificial structures, and ceremonial and public buildings. Together they bear testimony to the evolution of the city and exhibits evidence of the imperial dynastic system and urban planning traditions of China. The location, layout, urban pattern, roads and design showcase the ideal capital city as prescribed in the Kaogongji, an ancient text known as the Book of Diverse Crafts. The area, between two parallel rivers, has been settled for about 3,000 years, but the Central Axis itself originated during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) that established its capital, Dadu, in the northern part. The property also features later historical structures built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and improved during the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912).

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China: Slender West Lake and Historic Urban Area in Yangzhou - tentative

Slender West Lake, formerly Baozhang Lake, is located in the northwest of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, covering an area of two square kilometers. In the mid-18th century, the moats and a large number of suburban villas of salt traders along the moats built in different locations and in different historical period (Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties) were connected elaborately and delicately to welcome the south inspection of Emperor Qianlong, thus forming a beautiful belt of the lake with garden scenery combining natural and human landscapes characterized by the most famous 24 scenes of "rolling stone archway, winding water in west park, spring pillow on the long bank, bright cloud in white pagoda" etc. The typical layout of Chinese scroll-type picture was recorded by royal painters and filed in imperial storehouse due to its unique aesthetic value. Thanks to the impact of the south inspections by Emperor Qianlong and the support of its salt economy, Yangzhou had became the garden-building centre in China, represented by classical garden cluster around the Slender West Lake. As well-known as "Yangzhou Gardens is second to none in South China" and "Yangzhou Gardens is the best in China", it embodies the most advanced art in terms of layout, architecture, stone laying, water conservation, plant arrangement, etc. As a masterpiece in garden-building after Yuanmingyuan Park during the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, a lot of experiences can be drawn from it in the construction of the Chengde Mountain Resort.

China: Western Xia Imperial Tombs (tentative)

Western Xia Imperial Tombs are the royal mausoleums of the emperors in the Western Xia Dynasty (1038-1227). Located at the eastern slope of the Helan Mountains, western suburb about 35km away from Yinchuan City in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the Tombs are the best-preserved historic cultural heritage representing the Tangut civilization at the largest scale and in the highest rank.

China: Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er

Located on Jingmai Mountain in southwestern China, this cultural landscape was developed over a thousand years by the Blang and Dai peoples following practices that began in the 10th century. The property is a tea production area comprised of traditional villages within old tea groves surrounded by forests and tea plantations. The traditional understorey cultivation of old tea trees is a method that responds to the specific conditions of the mountain’s ecosystem and subtropical monsoon climate, combined with a governance system maintained by the local Indigenous communities. Traditional ceremonies and festivities relate to the Tea Ancestor belief that spirits live in the tea plantations and in the local fauna and flora, a belief that is at the core of this cultural tradition.

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China: Badain Jaran Desert - Towers of Sand and Lakes

Located in the Alashan Plateau in the hyper-arid and temperate desert region of northwestern China, the Badain Jaran Desert is a meeting point for three sandy regions of China and is the country’s third largest desert and second largest drifting desert. The property stands out with its high density of mega-dunes, intersected with inter-dunal lakes. It displays spectacular ongoing geological and geomorphic features of desert landscapes and landforms which may well be unparalleled. Noteworthy features, among others, include the world’s tallest, stabilized sand mega-dune (relative relief of 460 m); the highest concentration of inter-dunal lakes; and the largest expanse of so-called singing sands (describing the resonance caused for example by wind moving dry and loose sand) and wind-eroded landforms. The varied landscape also results in a high level of habitat diversity, and hence of biodiversity.

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China: Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China

The serial site of Quanzhou illustrates the city’s vibrancy as a maritime emporium during the Song and Yuan periods (10th - 14th centuries AD) and its interconnection with the Chinese hinterland. Quanzhou thrived during a highly significant period for maritime trade in Asia. The site encompasses religious buildings, including the 11th century AD Qingjing Mosque, one of the earliest Islamic edifices in China, Islamic tombs, and a wide range of archaeological remains: administrative buildings, stone docks that were important for commerce and defence, sites of ceramic and iron production, elements of the city’s transportation network, ancient bridges, pagodas, and inscriptions. Known as Zayton in Arabic and western texts of the 10th to 14th centuries AD.

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China: The Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin (tentative)

The Lijiang River Scenic Zone at GuilinLijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin (24°40'-25°25'N, 11 0O5'-11 0°40'E) is located in the northeast of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The total area is two thousand square kilometers which covers the entire city of Guilin, Yangshuo County and certain parts of Lingui, Lingchuan and Yongfu counties. Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin together with its natural resources is owned by the state. In 1982 the State Council listed the Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin among the first group of the major places of scenic and historic interest, which is now in the charge of the Administrative Bureau of the Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin. The landforms of Guilin can be divided into four categories but corrosion takes the main part of the four, that means the low-lying land of peaks and plains of peak forests are the landform features of Guilin; then the corrosion landforms of hillock and gentle slope hillock; eroding landforms of ridge, ravine; and accumulation landforms of every terrace. 

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China: Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark

Situated in close proximity to Hong Kong’s world-famous financial and business centre, which is also a food and shopping paradise, Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark of China is lauded as a unique “Geopark in the City”, with the city centre a mere one-hour bus or car ride away.

Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark’s major geoattractions include well-outcropped acidic volcanic hexagonal rock columns, of which the average diameter is 1.2 metres and which are distributed over a land-and-sea area of 100 square kilometres. The Geopark also has comprehensive sedimentary rock formations formed from the Devonian to the Paleogene (about 400 to 55 million years ago). It is integrated with diverse ecological resources such as mangroves, fung shui woods and coral communities and well-preserved Hakka walled-villages, fishing villages and historical relics such as temples that reveal the rich cultural heritage of the area, all combining to form the unique natural landscape of Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark.

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China: Zhangye UNESCO Global Geopark

Zhangye Geopark is adjacent to the Alxa block to the north and to the south to the Middle Qilian block, belonging to the transitional zone of the Qilian Caledonian fold belt and the Alxa block. The unique geographical location and complex geological process have created rich and typical geoheritage in the Geopark, making Zhangye Geopark a collection of Nine-Spring ophiolite suite, Colorful hills, typical Danxia landforms in arid areas, middle and small structures, water erosion geomorphology etc. Among the geoheritage, the Nine-Springs ophiolite suite has always been a hot spot for Chinese and foreign geologists to investigate and study. It is the Early Paleozoic collision zone between North China plate and the Qaidam plate. Because the ophiolite suite is of international geological significance, it became one of the field trip of the 30th International Geological Conference in 1996 and an important station of the "Australian-China Tectonics and Earth Resources Joint Center" field investigation route in 2018. Zhangye Colorful hills are characterized by monocline and monocline peaks due to tectonic movements, which are full of rhythm and layering and are of international geological significance. Binggou Danxia has developed windows-lattice and palace-style Danxia landforms in the arid area of northern China, often developing mud-emulsion, laminated and other micro-landforms. Heihe River is the second largest inland river in the northwest of China. The upper and middle reaches have formed the geological landscape such as the Heihe gorge with the decline of topography and the strong erosion of the river, which is the natural classroom of geoscience research and has the value of science popularization and education.

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China: Dunhuang UNESCO Global Geopark

Located in the Anxi-Dunhuang Graben Basin, east of the Tarim plate, Dunhuang UNESCO Global Geopark is rich in geoheritage of great scientific value, as well as significant value in geo-education and geotourism. The most representative geoheritage is the Yardang-Desert-Gobi landforms, which constitute typical landforms in the extremely arid region of China and the Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage Site, which were excavated in the Quaternary strata and perfectly embody the combination of geoheritage and culture. Among them, the Yardang landform is globally rare for its dense distribution, graceful shapes, large quantities and obvious changes in trend and complicated formation, which makes it important in studying formation and regional environmental evolution.

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China: The Ancient Waterfront Towns in the South of Yangtze River (tentative)

2500 years ago, when Suzhou became a city, its surrounding areas sprouted a number of half-urban, half-rural towns such as Tongli, Luzhi, Wuzhen, Nanxun, and Xitang. Since ancient times, by making full use of the natural conditions and geographic environment, residents of these towns accumulated rich experience of how to live with rivers and lakes in a harmonious way. With the growth of economy, culture, and productive forces, a network of towns connected by watercourses came into being in the 11th century. In the 13th century those towns began to thrive.

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Zhouzhuang Town

China: Ancient City of Ping Yao

Ping Yao is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a traditional Han Chinese city, founded in the 14th century. Its urban fabric shows the evolution of architectural styles and town planning in Imperial China over five centuries. Of special interest are the imposing buildings associated with banking, for which Ping Yao was the major centre for the whole of China in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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China: Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape

Located on the steep cliffs in the border regions of southwest China, these 38 sites of rock art illustrate the life and rituals of the Luoyue people. They date from the period around the 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. In a surrounding landscape of karst, rivers and plateaux, they depict ceremonies that have been interpreted as portraying the bronze drum culture once prevalent across southern China. This cultural landscape is the only remains of this culture today.

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China: Yungang Grottoes

The Yungang Grottoes, in Datong city, Shanxi Province, with their 252 caves and 51,000 statues, represent the outstanding achievement of Buddhist cave art in China in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Five Caves created by Tan Yao, with their strict unity of layout and design, constitute a classical masterpiece of the first peak of Chinese Buddhist art.

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China: Yin Xu

The archaeological site of Yin Xu, close to Anyang City, some 500 km south of Beijing, is an ancient capital city of the late Shang Dynasty (1300 - 1046 BC). It testifies to the golden age of early Chinese culture, crafts and sciences, a time of great prosperity of the Chinese Bronze Age. A number of royal tombs and palaces, prototypes of later Chinese architecture, have been unearthed on the site, including the Palace and Royal Ancestral Shrines Area, with more than 80 house foundations, and the only tomb of a member of the royal family of the Shang Dynasty to have remained intact, the Tomb of Fu Hao. The large number and superb craftsmanship of the burial accessories found there bear testimony to the advanced level of Shang crafts industry. Inscriptions on oracle bones found in Yin Xu bear invaluable testimony to the development of one of the world’s oldest writing systems, ancient beliefs and social systems.

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China: Xinjiang Tianshan

Xinjiang Tianshan comprises four components—Tomur, Kalajun-Kuerdening, Bayinbukuke and Bogda— that total 606,833 hectares. They are part of the Tianshan mountain system of Central Asia, one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. Xinjiang Tianshan presents unique physical geographic features and scenically beautiful areas including spectacular snow and snowy mountains glacier-capped peaks, undisturbed forests and meadows, clear rivers and lakes and red bed canyons. These landscapes contrast with the vast adjacent desert landscapes, creating a striking visual contrast between hot and cold environments, dry and wet, desolate and luxuriant. The landforms and ecosystems of the site have been preserved since the Pliocene epoch and present an outstanding example of ongoing biological and ecological evolutionary processes. The site also extends into the Taklimakan Desert, one of the world’s largest and highest deserts, known for its large dune forms and great dust storms. Xinjiang Tianshan is moreover an important habitat for endemic and relic flora species, some rare and endangered.

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China: Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area

A spectacular area stretching over more than 26,000 ha in China's Hunan Province, the site is dominated by more than 3,000 narrow sandstone pillars and peaks, many over 200 m high. Between the peaks lie ravines and gorges with streams, pools and waterfalls, some 40 caves, and two large natural bridges. In addition to the striking beauty of the landscape, the region is also noted for the fact that it is home to a number of endangered plant and animal species.

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China: West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou

The West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the 9th century. It comprises numerous temples, pagodas, pavilions, gardens and ornamental trees, as well as causeways and artificial islands. These additions have been made to improve the landscape west of the city of Hangzhou to the south of the Yangtze river.

The West Lake has influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries and bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of improving landscapes to create a series of vistas reflecting an idealised fusion between humans and nature.

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