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West Lake latest addition to list
June 26, 2011, Sunday
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THE World Heritage Committee inscribed the West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou on UNESCO's World Heritage List on Friday.
The inscribed landscape, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the ninth century. It features 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 in Zhejiang Province.
Since 2002, a series of comprehensive protection projects have been undertaken, protecting not only core areas but also extending to scenic views in surrounding areas such as the Beishan Street historic and cultural zone, Mei Jia Wu tea cultural village and Xixi National Wetland Park, among many others.
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 idealized fusion between humans and nature.
The honor, announced at the committee's 35th session held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, increases China's World Heritage Sites to 41. China now ranks third in number of sites, after Italy's 45 and Spain's 42.
(UNESCO website)
The inscribed landscape, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the ninth century. It features 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 in Zhejiang Province.
Since 2002, a series of comprehensive protection projects have been undertaken, protecting not only core areas but also extending to scenic views in surrounding areas such as the Beishan Street historic and cultural zone, Mei Jia Wu tea cultural village and Xixi National Wetland Park, among many others.
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 idealized fusion between humans and nature.
The honor, announced at the committee's 35th session held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, increases China's World Heritage Sites to 41. China now ranks third in number of sites, after Italy's 45 and Spain's 42.
(UNESCO website)
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