Beijing Hutong

Author: Liu Baoquan;
Language: English
Page: 259
Publication Date: 08/2008
ISBN: 9787503235306
Publisher: China Travel and Tourism Press
Details
With a long history and rich connotation, Chinese geographical names culture is crowned as national treasure.Ancient geographical names feature the rare recorded history of civilization extending for 5,000 yearscontinuously. To protect this precious cultural heritage, China Institute of Toponymy and Chinese Division ofUnited Nations Group of Experts on the Geographical Names (UNGEGN) launched the Protection Project ofChina Geographical Names Cultural Heritage. According to the guidelines and principles of the world culturalheritage protection, these relevant organizations conducted researches on China geographical names and workedout the Master Plan for Protection Project of China Geographical Names Cultural Heritage. All these are ofpractical significance to the protection of China geographical names cultural heritage and China's declaration ofthe geographical names for world intangible cultural heritage.Liu Baoquan, Chairman of the Chinese division of UNGEGN, attended the 9th United Nations Conference on theStandardization of the Geographical Names in August, 2007. He informed us that the conference had recognizedgeographical names as the intangible cultural heritage, which complies with the principle of the Convention onProtection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. We were all happy with it.Beijing is one of the most ancient, historical and cultural capital cities in the world. Hutong names culture isan important part of the unique history and culture in Beijing. Over the past few years, great achievementshave been made in the activities of researching Beijing Hutong names and in protecting geographical namescultural heritage nationwide. All these have laid a solid foundation for China's declaration of Beijing Hutongnames intangible cultural heritage. As a member of the Chinese group of experts on protection of geographicalnames cultural heritage, and advisor of China Institute of Toponymy, I would like to do my contribution to theprotection of China geographical names cultural heritage with my colleagues.I am sure that the compilation and publishing of the book entitled Beijing Hutong are of great significancein the protection and salvage of Beijing Hutongs and the cultural heritage with artistic and scientific researchvalue. Protection of Hutong names is a way of protecting cultural heritage, serving as a great contribution tothe preservation of valuable research materials when the cultural entity can not be preserved although it can notreplace the cultural entity. The publishing of this book is bound to play an active role in the popularization ofChinese culture, scientific researches, development of local and regional culture and flourishing of tourism.