China's serial heritage nomination Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites secured inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List at the 48th World Heritage Committee session in Busan on Saturday, marking the country's first complete handicraft porcelain production system to earn global cultural heritage recognition.

WHAT DO THE HERITAGE SITES COVER?

The serial property consists of five geographically scattered but functionally linked component parts spread across Jingdezhen City, east China's Jiangxi Province, covering a total heritage zone of 1,979 hectares with a 5,545.7-hectare protective buffer zone.

Each segment fulfills an indispensable role in the ancient porcelain manufacturing ecosystem.

The Town Area Porcelain Production Center sits in downtown Jingdezhen, preserving tangible relics of a large-scale, intensive porcelain manufacturing system that took shape in the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties and continued through the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

The Hutian Ancient Kiln Site served as the core kiln complex for Jingdezhen's handmade porcelain industry during the Song and Yuan periods.

The Gaoling Porcelain Clay Mining Site was the most renowned source of kaolin raw materials in the Ming and Qing eras.

The Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site constituted a key production base for porcelain stone and glaze stone over the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Jiaotan Firewood Production Area stands as a typical intact example of the entire firewood logging and waterborne transport system that supplied kilns throughout the Ming and Qing periods.

It is worth noting that the handicraft porcelain industry heritage covers not only tangible relics such as ancient kiln sites, but also the integrated systems of porcelain-making techniques, industrial organization and social order embodied collectively by the serial heritage components.