13 ancient towns in three cities of Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province will jointly apply for world cultural heritage.
Suzhou will coordinate and take the lead in the application. The application work is directed by Cultural and Natural Heritage Institute of Nanjing University. There are three stages of the work. From 2015 to 2016, it is the preparation stage. The year 2017 is the application stage and after that, it is the inspection stage.
In 2012, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage released an updated “World Heritage Tentative List inChina” and ten ancient towns in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were included.The six towns in Jiangsu Province are Luzhi, Zhouzhuang, Tongli, Qiandeng, Jinxi and Shaxi; the four towns in Zhejiang Province are Wuzhen, Nanxun, Xitang and Xinshi. Recently, three towns including Lili, Zhenze and Fenghuang were added to this list.
