Mount Sanqingshan National Park

Mount Sanqingshan National Park, a 22,950 ha property located in the west of the Huyaiyu mountain range in the northeast of Jiangxi Province (in the east of central China) has been inscribed for its exceptional scenic quality, marked by the concentration of fantastically shaped pillars and peaks: 48 granite peaks and 89 granite pillars, many of which resemble human or animal silhouettes. The natural beauty of the 1,817 metre high Mount Huaiyu is further enhanced by the juxtaposition of granite features with the vegetation and particular meteorological conditions which make for an ever-changing and arresting landscape with bright halos on clouds and white rainbows. The area is subject to a combination of subtropical monsoonal and maritime influences and forms an island of temperate forest above the surrounding subtropical landscape. It also features forests and numerous waterfalls, some of them 60 metres in height, lakes and springs.

Outstanding Universal Value

Values

Mount Sanqingshan National Park displays a unique array of forested, fantastically shaped granite pillars and peaks concentrated in a relatively small area. The looming, intricate rock formations intermixed with delicate forest cover and combined with ever-shifting weather patterns create a landscape of arresting beauty.

Criterion (vii): Superlative natural phenomena or natural beauty: Mount Sanqingshan’s remarkable granite rock formations combine with diverse forest, near and distant vistas, and striking meteorological effects to create a landscape of exceptional scenic quality. The most notable aspect is the concentration of fantastically shaped pillars and peaks. The natural beauty of Mount Sanqingshan also derives from the juxtaposition of its granite features with the mountain’s vegetation enhanced by meteorological conditions which create an ever-changing and arresting landscape. The access afforded by suspended walking trails in the park permits visitors to appreciate the park’s stunning scenery and enjoy its serene atmosphere.

Integrity

The park boundaries are appropriately drawn to protect the naturalness of the landscape and the areas required to maintain the scenic qualities of the property. The property, although relatively small, includes all of the granite peaks and pillars which provide the framework for its aesthetic values. Boundaries are accurately surveyed and demarcated. The property’s integrity is enhanced by the designation of a buffer zone that is not part of the inscribed property.

Requirements for Protection and Management

The property has effective legal protection, a sound planning framework and is currently well managed. The park benefits from strong government support and funding. The park’s natural resources are in good condition and threats are considered manageable. There is an effective management regime in place for the park. The key requirement is to manage the property to retain its aesthetic values, and a delicate balance will need to be maintained with the provision of visitor access. The most significant threat relates to the future increase in tourism, and careful and sensitive planning of the related infrastructure and access development is required.

Fujian Tulou

Fujian Tulou is a property of 46 houses built between the 12th and 20th centuries over 120 km in south-west of Fujian province, inland from the Taiwan Strait. Set amongst rice, tea and tobacco fields the tulou are earthen houses. Several storeys high, they are built along an inward-looking, circular or square floor plan as housing for up to 800 people each. They were built for defence purposes around a central open courtyard with few windows to the outside and only one entrance. Housing a whole clan, the houses functioned as village units and were known as “a little kingdom for the family” or “bustling small city.” They feature tall fortified mud walls capped by tiled roofs with wide over-hanging eaves. The most elaborate structures date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The buildings were divided vertically between families with each disposing of two or three rooms on each floor. In contrast with their plain exterior, the inside of the tulou were built for comfort and were often highly decorated. They are inscribed as exceptional examples of a building tradition and function exemplifying a particular type of communal living and defensive organization, and, in terms of their harmonious relationship with their environment, an outstanding example of human settlement.

Outstanding Universal Value

The Fujian Tulou are the most representative and best preserved examples of the tulou of the mountainous regions of south-eastern China. The large, technically sophisticated and dramatic earthen defensive buildings, built between the 13th and 20th centuries, in their highly sensitive setting in fertile mountain valleys, are an extraordinary reflection of a communal response to settlement which has persisted over time. The tulou, and their extensive associated documentary archives, reflect the emergence, innovation, and development of an outstanding art of earthen building over seven centuries. The elaborate compartmentalised interiors, some with highly decorated surfaces, met both their communities’ physical and spiritual needs and reflect in an extraordinary way the development of a sophisticated society in a remote and potentially hostile environment. The relationship of the massive buildings to their landscape embodies both Feng Shui principles and ideas of landscape beauty and harmony.

Criterion (iii): The tulou bear an exceptional testimony to a long-standing cultural tradition of defensive buildings for communal living that reflect sophisticated building traditions and ideas of harmony and collaboration, well documented over time.

Criterion (iv): The tulou are exceptional in terms of size, building traditions and function, and reflect society’s response to various stages in economic and social history within the wider region.

Criterion (v): The tulou as a whole and the nominated Fujian tulou in particular, in terms of their form are a unique reflection of communal living and defensive needs, and in terms of their harmonious relationship with their environment, an outstanding example of human settlement.

The authenticity of the tulou is related to sustaining the tulou themselves and their building traditions as well as the structures and processes associated with their farmed and forested landscape setting. The integrity of the tulou is related to their intactness as buildings but also to the intactness of the surrounding farmed and forested landscape – into which they were so carefully sited in accordance with Feng Shui principles.

The legal protection of the nominated areas and their buffer zones are adequate. The overall management system for the property is adequate, involving both government administrative bodies and local communities, although plans for the sustainability of the landscape that respect local farming and forestry traditions need to be better developed.

South China Karst

The South China Karst region extends over a surface of half a million km2 lying mainly in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces. It represents one of the world’s most spectacular examples of humid tropical to subtropical karst landscapes. The stone forests of Shilin are considered superlative natural phenomena and a world reference with a wider range of pinnacle shapes than other karst landscapes with pinnacles, and a higher diversity of shapes and changing colours. The cone and tower karsts of Libo, also considered the world reference site for these types of karst, form a distinctive and beautiful landscape. Wulong Karst has been inscribed for its giant dolines (sinkholes), natural bridges and caves.

Outstanding Universal Value

South China is unrivalled for the diversity of its karst features and landscapes. The property includes specifically selected areas that are of outstanding universal value to protect and present the best examples of these karst features and landscapes. South China Karst is a coherent serial property comprising three clusters, Libo Karst and Shilin Karst, each with two components, and Wulong Karst with three components.

Criterion (vii): South China Karst represents one of the world's most spectacular examples of humid tropical to subtropical karst landscapes. The stone forests of Shilin are considered superlative natural phenomena and the world reference site for this type of feature. The cluster includes the Naigu stone forest occurring on dolomitic limestone and the Suyishan stone forest arising from a lake. Shilin contains a wider range of pinnacle shapes than other karst landscapes with pinnacles, and a higher diversity of shapes and colours that change with different weather and light conditions. The cone and tower karsts of Libo, also considered the world reference site for these types of karsts, form a distinctive and beautiful landscape. Wulong includes giant collapse depressions, called Tiankeng, and exceptionally high natural bridges between which are long stretches of very deep unroofed caves. These spectacular karst features are of world class quality.

Criterion (viii): Both Shilin and Libo are global reference areas for the karst features and landscapes that they exhibit. Major developments in the stone forests of Shilin occurred over some 270 million years during four major geological time periods from the Permian to present, illustrating the episodic nature of the evolution of these karst features. Libo contains carbonate outcrops of different ages that erosive processes shaped over millions of years into impressive Fengcong (cone) and Fenglin (tower) karsts. It contains a combination of numerous tall karst peaks, deep dolines, sinking streams and long river caves. Wulong represents high inland karst plateaus that have experienced considerable uplift, and its giant dolines and bridges are representative of South China's Tiankeng landscapes. Wulong's landscapes contain evidence for the history of one of the world's great river systems, the Yangtze and its tributaries.

The property is well managed, with clear management plans in place and the effective involvement of various stakeholders. There are strong international networks in place to support continued research and management. Of the three clusters, Wulong has suffered the least human impact by virtue of its remoteness and retains natural values that have been reduced in other comparable areas. Continued efforts are required to expand and refine buffer zones to protect upstream catchments and their downstream and underground continuation in order to maintain water quality at a level that ensures the long term conservation of the property and its subterranean processes and ecosystems. At Wulong the boundaries of the core zone should be considered for extension, and a single landscape-scale buffer zone would be a significant improvement to encompass all of the Tiankeng elements to the north of the Furong gorge. Traditional management by minority peoples is an important feature of both clusters, and the relationship between karst and the cultural identity and traditions of minority groups including the Yi (Shilin) and the Shui, Yao and Buyi (Libo) requires continued recognition and respect in site management. Potential for further extension of the property requires development of a management framework for effective coordination between the different clusters.

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages feature the Diaolou, multi-storeyed defensive village houses in Kaiping, which display a complex and flamboyant fusion of Chinese and Western structural and decorative forms. They reflect the significant role of émigré Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are four groups of Diaolou and twenty of the most symbolic ones are inscribed on the List. These buildings take three forms: communal towers built by several families and used as temporary refuge, residential towers built by individual rich families and used as fortified residences, and watch towers. Built of stone, pise, brick or concrete, these buildings represent a complex and confident fusion between Chinese and Western architectural styles. Retaining a harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape, the Diaolou testify to the final flowering of local building traditions that started in the Ming period in response to local banditry.

Outstanding Universal Value

The Diaolou and their surrounding villages demonstrate Outstanding Universal Value for their complex and confident fusion between Chinese and western architectural styles, for their final flowering of local tower building traditions, for their completeness and unaltered state resulting from their short life span as fortified dwellings and their comparative abandonment and for harmonious relationship with their agricultural landscape.

Criterion (ii): The Diaolou represent in dramatic physical terms an important interchange of human values - architectural styles brought back from North America by returning Chinese and fused with local rural traditions - within a particular cultural area of the world.

Criterion (iii): The building of defensive towers was a local tradition in the Kaiping area since Ming times in response to local banditry. The nominated Diaolou represent the final flourishing of this tradition, in which the conspicuous wealth of the retuning Chinese contributed to the spread of banditry and their towers were an extreme response.

Criterion (iv): The main towers, with their settings and through their flamboyant display of wealth, are a type of building that reflects the significant role played by émigré Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia, and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the continuing links between the Kaiping community and Chinese communities in these parts of the world.

The wholeness and intactness of the nominated properties are evident insofar as all the elements that express their values are still in place; the size of each of the properties is adequate as the features and processes that convey the significance are fully represented in the towers and their surrounding villages of small houses and farmland. The nominated Diaolou, their surrounding village houses, and the agricultural landscape are all authentic, apart from certain houses in Sanmenli Village.

Since 2001, all the Diaolou are protected as national monuments under the Law for the Protection of Cultural Relics, 1982 and also covered by Provincial and Municipal Regulations. A buffer zone has been established. The overall state of conservation of the Diaolou is good; the state of conservation of village houses and the agricultural landscape is reasonable. No extensive conservation works have been undertaken. Nevertheless minor repair works, are carried out where necessary, and inappropriate building interventions have been reversed. A Management Plan for the nominated property has been drawn up by Beijing University under the auspices of the People's Government of Kaiping City. It has been implemented since 2005.

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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