4 cities jointly apply for world heritage recognition(2)

2007-10-19 11:01:28 [ Big Normal Small ]    　Comment

The ancient wall of Jingzhou City

The Jingzhou ancient wall was first built in the Three Kingdoms Period (220 -280) and maintained and rebuilt during the reign of the Emperor Hongwu (1368 - 1398). Now there is still 11.28 kilometers of protected wall, together with six city gates.

The specialists in the forum said that four cities applying to be listed in the world heritage together would be more competitive than individual applications.

At the forum the ancient wall administration departments of 18 cities reached the Declaration on China's Ancient City Walls' Protection in Nanjing on October 13. The declaration will be the guideline for all problems related to ancient city walls protection.

The declaration says protection of ancient city walls should include all equipment and surrounding environments as well, such as the city moats, city gates, watchtowers, and the hills where the walls are situated.

The Nanjing municipal government has set a 50-meter-wide belt area outside the city wall as protection, and Jingzhou City set the belt at 200 meters wide.

On the other hand, the declaration clearly forbids all construction projects of ancient city walls. There was a trend in the 1950s of dismantling ancient walls and rebuilding them. Actually the core aim of protection on ancient city walls is to protect the original look and the rebuilt ones are not the real and integrate walls. The rebuilding action may also cause the loss of important historical information of the wall.

Related: