Over 100 events to mark China's cultural and natural heritage

Chongqing will be the country's main venue celebrating the upcoming Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which falls on June 12, according to a news conference of the National Cultural Heritage Administration on Thursday.

More than 100 activities will be held on that day. A highlighted event will be a symposium celebrating the 100th anniversary of founding of modern archaeology in China. Archaeologists, conservators of cultural relics, museum operators, and administrators from across the country will gather to trace the 100-year-long development of Chinese career protecting cultural heritages.

A conservation center for cultural relics from the Three Gorges area will open on June 12. The center, covering an area of 8,400 square meters, will become one of the country's key hub for cultural relic conservation, and greatly improve the capacity of the whole industry through adoption of new technologies.

Separately, a special exhibition is scheduled to be held in Chongqing starting from that day honoring a painstaking yet significant journey during wartime decades ago. During the War Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), 3,694 boxes of cultural relics were escorted from the Forbidden City in Beijing, also known as the Palace Museum today, to Chongqing, to avoid them from falling into enemies' hands.

The original site that once stored these relics has been turned into a memorial hall remembering people's devotion to protect a country's history. The Palace Museum and Chongqing government is to launch a series of cooperative exhibitions and public education activities based on the newly renovated venue in the future.

In China, the second Saturday of every June is set as the Cultural and Natural Heritage Day to improve the public's consciousness protecting the heritages.