East China’s Jiangsu province has creatively constructed the "1+1+6+11" planning system to promote the creation of a new situation for the protection, inheritance and utilization of the Grand Canal culture, to ensure that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the Jiangsu section of the Grand Canal is built into a beautiful picture of history and modernity, culture and ecology, nature and landscape that complement each other.
Jiangsu has taken the lead in the country in promulgating the "Provincial Implementation Plan for the Protection, Inheritance and Utilization of the Grand Canal Culture and formulated the country’s first provincial-level Grand Canal National Cultural Park Construction Protection Plan for the first time.
Jiangsu has also compiled provincial-level special plans for the protection and inheritance of the cultural heritage of the Grand Canal, the integration and development of cultural tourism, the management and protection of rivers and water systems, the restoration of ecological environmental protection, the interpretation and promotion of cultural values, and the development of modern shipping.
The 11 prefecture-level cities have also issued their own implementation plans, forming a "1+1+6+11" planning system for the protection, inheritance and utilization of the Grand Canal culture in the Jiangsu section.
According to the Provincial Implementation Plan for the Protection, Inheritance and Utilization of the Grand Canal Culture, Jiangsu will build the Jiangsu section of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt into a high-grade cultural corridor, a high-value ecological corridor, and a high-level tourist corridor so that it will become a national demonstration section and model section.
Specific measures include the construction of the exhibition system of the Jiangsu section of the National Cultural Park, the cultural heritage protection display, the construction of green ecological corridors, important cultural tourism routes, and the promotion of the millennium-old canal as a cultural tourism brand.
The Grand Canal, also called Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, is series of waterways in eastern and northern China that link Hangzhou in Zhejiang province with Beijing. It was built to enable successive Chinese regimes to transport surplus grain from the agriculturally rich Yangtze River and Huaihe River valleys to feed the capital cities and large standing armies in northern China.
The Grand Canal was added to the World Heritage list at the 38th session of UNESCO's World Heritage committee in Doha, Qatar. The Grand Canal dates back 2,400 years. With a length of 1,794 kilometers, it's the longest man-made waterway in the world. And it is still in use. The heritage site consists of five sections of the Grand Canal across six provinces and two municipalities in China, linking Hangzhou to the capital, Beijing.
