Comparative Study On The Features Of The World Cultural Heritages In Beijing And Rome

China and Italy are both boasted for their long history and splendid culture.Between the year 114 BC and the year Ad 127,there was a ‘western transportation route' for silk trading business in ancient China started from Chang'an(Xi'an today)to the Mediterranean sea and Asia Minor areas and reaching as far as Da Qin(Italy today),which was still in use until the 16 th century.The German geographer,Ferdinand von Richthofen(1833-1905),called this route as ‘Silk Road' for the first time in his book <China-My travel achievement> published in 1877.In September of the year 2013,Chinese president,Xi Jinping,stated the strategic concept ‘One Belt and One Road'.In June of the year 2014,the World Heritage Committee announced the ‘Silk Road: road net from Chang'an to Tianshan corridor' as a world cultural heritage.Based on this,this paper focused on the research of the two starting countries of ‘Silk Road'.According to the latest < World Heritage List> published by the UN World Heritage Committee in 2015,Italy and China share the 1st and 2nd places in the world heritage family by owning 51 world heritages and 48 world heritages respectively.And as the capitals of these two countries,Beijing owns the largest number of world heritages and Rome has the longest time span of the world heritages.Both of the two cities have very important positions in history and culture.The multidimensional comparison to the world heritage of Beijing and Rome could be regarded as a current narration which keeps on from the dialogue taking place on the Silk Road.This thesis reviewed the development of world heritage protection and systematically integrated related concepts and theories about world heritage protection.This paper showed the various characteristics and profound connotation of the world heritages in Beijing and Rome through a multi-dimensional comparison mainly based on the features of world heritage.Regarding the process and time-spatial distribution of Chinese and Roman world heritages protection,this thesis also did a preliminary comparison study.Additionally,this paper also took China and Rome as an example for a brief analysis on the influences of world cultural heritages on history and culture,trying to make some constructive suggestions on the strategies of heritage protection in China nowadays.The thesis contains 6 chapters.The first chapter presented the background,significance,contents,methods and ideas of this research and overviewed the current status of world researches,to build the frame of the whole thesis.The second chapter built the frame of systematical definition of world heritage.The third chapter made a deep analysis on the world cultural heritages in these two capitals by comparing the characteristics of world heritages,such as evaluation level,building type and size,city distribution morphology etc.based on an investigation of the world cultural heritages in Beijing and Rome.The fourth chapter compared the development and current status of world heritage protection in China and Italy through the different philosophy in eastern and western world based on the analysis of Beijing and Rome,in order to propose some constructive advices on the utilization and protection of world heritages in China.The fifth chapter tried to define the ‘cultural characteristic' of world cultural heritage,which is the impact of cultural heritage on reflecting history and culture.The sixth chapter was the conclusion of the thesis.The world cultural heritage is not only the property of a country or a nation,but also the precious wealth of people all over the world.Under the standard evaluation system,world cultural heritage has both natural unity and typological diversity.The unity is based on the value of world cultural heritage.As a product of cultural and social development,cultural heritage fully reflect the historic features of that time and that place,providing information for research.Cultural heritage contributes a lot to human development,so all the countries and nations have the responsibility to protect and inherit it.World cultural heritage also shows diversity because of its difference on many objective factors,such as shape,type,geographic distribution etc.As the capitals of the two biggest countries in world cultural heritage family,there is no doubt that Beijing and Rome both have very important positions and influences on world cultural heritage protection.More and more people concern about the protection and utilization of world cultural heritage for its further witness on development of the history,especially after the Second World War.We have to admit that Roman started to focus on protection,research and utilization work about this issue much earlier than us.This thesis attempts to enhance the pride and respect to world cultural heritage by comparing China with Italy,to contribute more to the protection and inheritance of world cultural heritage.