Local (official) in Beijing promised to further protect the city's cultural heritage, in particular the narrow streets known as hutongs.
Hutongs are (common) found in the cities of North China, but they are in danger. Beijing is currently believed to have fewer than 1,000 hutongs, most of are near the Forbidden City. Only 60 years ago, the number of the hutongs (be) 3,250.
"Every year more than 100, 000 people visit the Forbidden City during the National Day holidays. The visits put pressure on protection of cultural relics," said Huang Yan, director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, (add) that hutongs should be protected from human damage.
The government concentrated how the protection plans were carried out and how the management of cultural heritage worked. Wang Shaofeng, head of the Xicheng District Government, said the area has 182 cultural relics, and many of them were built as far back as the Yuan Dynasty. The district of Xicheng has
1. 28 million residents in (it) 57 square kilometers of land. "The most efficient way is to decrease the local population to reduce the possibility of causing harm to the heritage," Wang said. "Each community has been required (report) the status of its cultural heritage. " No one knows for sure how many hutongs (leave) in the coming 100 years.
