Quanzhou Added to UNESCO World Heritage List

China’s eastern port city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province won UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status on July 25, bringing the total number of the country’s UNESCO World Heritage sites to 56.

UNESCO acknowledged “Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-yuan China” as a cultural property on its World Heritage List during the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Fuzhou, capital of east China’s Fujian Province.

Located on narrow plains along the coastline of Fujian, Quanzhou was one of the world’s largest ports along the historic Maritime Silk Road, particularly during ancient China’s Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

The serial proterty includes 22 sites of administrative buildings and structures, religious buildings, and statues, and in its heyday hosted multi-cultural communities, cultural memorial sites and monuments, ceramics and iron production workshops, and a transportation network made up of bridges, docks, and pagodas that guided voyages.

“It reflects greatly a spatial structure that combined production, transportation, and marketing. It demonstrates the key institutional, social, and cultural factors that contributed to the spectacular rise and prosperity of Quanzhou as a maritime hub of the East and Southeast Asia trade network during the 10th to 14th centuries AD,” said a report by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the committee’s official advisory body.

It is the second time the city has applied for the prestigious title. In 2018, China’s nomination “Historic Monuments and Sites of Ancient Quanzhou (Zayton)” was referred back for a second chance when the committee met in Bahrain in 2018.

China made significant technical adjustments and resubmitted the application as “Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-yuan China,” with the former 16 sites included in the serial nomination expanded to 22 sites, according to Zhang Lei. Zhang is head of the world cultural heritage department under China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration and made the remarks at a press conference.