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| WU-YUE IN CHINA UNDER THE VIEW OF WORLD HERITAGE |
| QUE Wei-min, XIE Ning-gao, CHEN Yao-hua, SONG Feng, WANG Lian-yong, LIU Ye-chen |
| College of Urban & Environment, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China |
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Abstract WU-YUE①(Five Mountains, referring to the Five Sacred Mountains in China),the general term for five Historic Mountains including Mt. Tai in the east, Mt. Heng in the south, Mt. Hua in the west, Mt. Heng in the north and Mt Song in the center of China, was the core area of dynasties' territory in China, the site for the emperor who unified the territories to inspect locals and to offer sacrifices to heaven & earth, the place merging different religions over the world, the common memory for national history and culture by Chinese nationality, and the sacred mountain group with high-quality of Chinese history & culture. There are plentiful historical documents about the WU-YUE, such as papers, poets and Chinese traditional paintings, etc., which recorded the long historical changes in culture and tradition of WU-YUE areas. Based on the analysis of historical changes of WU-YUE's names, their locations, and the characteristics of the cultures and religions of WU-XING, this paper discusses the outstanding universal values of WU-YUE from the perspective of World Heritage. Besides, the paper argues that, as the most sacred mountain group in China, WU-YUE have the great significance in China's unification and mergence of different religions in China. The outstanding universal values of these five mountains include the model of harmony between human & nature, exhibition of ancient science & technology, contribution to communication between China and foreign countries, picturesque natural landscape, record of geological evolution, as well as homeland for rare & precious plants. The authors argue that it would be of significance to exhibit Chinese culture to the World, if WU-YUE, as one of the highest quality of Sacred Mountains Group over the World, could be inscribed into the list of World Heritage by UNESCO.
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Received: 28 July 2008
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2009, Vol. 24 
