Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry Sites Join UNESCO World Heritage List

On July 25, 2026, UNESCO inscribed the Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites on the World Heritage List at the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea. It is China's first complete handicraft porcelain production system to earn global cultural heritage recognition.

What Was Inscribed

• A serial property of five geographically scattered but functionally linked component parts spread across Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province (east China): a total heritage zone of 1,979 hectares plus a 5,545.7-hectare protective buffer zone.
• Town Area Porcelain Production Center — downtown Jingdezhen; relics of a large-scale 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).
• Hutian Ancient Kiln Site — the core kiln complex of Jingdezhen's handmade porcelain industry during the Song and Yuan periods.
• Gaoling Porcelain Clay Mining Site — the most renowned source of kaolin raw material in the Ming and Qing eras.
• Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site — a key production base for porcelain stone and glaze stone through the Ming and Qing dynasties.
• Jiaotan Firewood Production Area — an intact example of the firewood logging and waterborne transport system that supplied the kilns in the Ming and Qing periods.
• Beyond physical relics, the property covers the integrated systems of porcelain-making techniques, industrial organization and social order embodied collectively by the five components.

Why It Matters

• The property testifies to the development of China's handicraft porcelain industry from the 10th to the 19th centuries, reflecting a fusion of porcelain-making techniques, culture and art from China and other parts of the world.
• Its technologies, production arrangements and artistic styles had wide global influence — particularly the "binary formula" technology and blue-and-white and famille-rose porcelain.
• Jingdezhen was the world porcelain production center from the 16th to 18th centuries, and the sites preserve the spatial and social organization of that production: resource extraction and transport, manufacturing and sales.
• Blue-and-white porcelain became an important symbol of Oriental art and directly influenced the European "chinoiserie" popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an advisory body to the World Heritage Committee, Jingdezhen stands out for the scale and sustained period of its production of porcelain of high commercial and symbolic value.

What To Do

• The property is not a single fenced attraction: its five components are scattered across Jingdezhen City — a downtown production-center area plus outlying kiln, mining and firewood-production sites.
• The announcement covers the heritage inscription only and includes no visitor information (opening arrangements, tickets). Check official local channels before planning a visit.