A Study On The Protection Of Intangible Heritage In Historic Area

Cultural heritage comprises two equivalent important parts: tangible cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage. The protection of cultural heritage should have attached equal importance to these two parts. However, based on our field studies in several historic areas in eastern china, we realize that in china, tangible cultural heritage in historic areas such as historic buildings, pavements and squares are the absolute center in the protection process. Being lack of protection of intangible cultural heritage has caused most of these historic areas turn to be a 'scene', in where little vivid traditional life has been inherited.In our study, we focus on the protection of intangible cultural heritage in historic areas, and we mainly discussed three questions: why we should protect intangible cultural heritage in historic areas; what kinds of intangible cultural heritage should we protect and how could we protect them.In the first and second chapter, we analyzed the concepts of historic areas protection and intangible cultural heritage protection, which include their definitions, histories, current situations and future trends. It is our contention that intangible cultural heritage is the vital content in historic areas protection.In the third and fourth chapter, we demonstrated the questions of what kinds of intangible cultural heritage should we protect and how could we protect them, taking Tunxi historic areas as an example. We argued that the range of intangible cultural heritage in historic areas is composed of three lays, and the protection of them has to rely on local people, following the steps of evaluating, planning and practicing.