Jingdezhen’s Porcelain Heritage Joins the UNESCO World Heritage List

On 25 July 2026, at the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea, China’s nomination "Jingdezhen Handcrafted Porcelain Industry Heritage" was inscribed on the World Heritage List. It brings China’s total to 61 properties — and it fills a gap that had always looked odd on the List: until now, no World Heritage site was dedicated to porcelain.

2026年7月25日，在韓國釜山舉行的聯合國教科文組織第48屆世界遺產大會上，我國申報的「景德鎮手工瓷業遺存」正式列入《世界遺產名錄》，中國世界遺產總數增至61項。它同時補上了《名錄》上一直缺席的一環——在此之前，並無一處世界遺產是以「瓷」為主題。

What was inscribed is not one kiln or one museum. It is a whole industrial landscape of the 10th to 19th centuries — clay mines, stone mines, firewood forests, the rivers that carried all of it, and the dense town where seventy pairs of hands turned raw earth into the most sought-after objects on earth. Five components, fifteen groups of elements, forty-five individual sites, read together as a single production system.

此次列入的並非某一座窯或某一間博物館，而是10至19世紀完整的產業景觀——瓷土礦、瓷石礦、窯柴山林、串連其間的河道，以及那座分工極細的城鎮；在那裏，一坯之力過手七十餘，方成為當時全球最受追逐的物件。五個組成部分、十五組構成要素、四十五個遺產點，合起來讀，就是一套完整的瓷業生產體系。

The kiln district: where the wares were made

The heart of the property is a small basin on the east bank of the Chang River — 251.4 hectares of flat, workable ground, with a stretch of straight river below Guanyin Pavilion where boats could dock. It holds four archaeological kiln sites (the Imperial Kiln Factory, Luomaqiao, Guanyinge and the Imperial Kiln West site), five surviving private kiln houses and workshops, four porcelain shopfronts, eight guild and trade-association buildings, the three-tier street-and-lane system that still organises the old town, two excavated lanes, plus the working waterway and the Sanlümiao wharf.

遺產的核心是昌江東岸的一片小盆地：251.4公頃地勢平坦、便於營作；觀音閣以下河道相對平直，適合設埠停船。這裏包含四處考古窯址（御窯廠窯址、落馬橋窯址、觀音閣窯址、御窯廠西窯址）、五處民窯窯房與作坊、四處瓷業店鋪、八處瓷業社會組織建築及遺址，以及至今仍界定老城肌理的「主街—巷弄—橫弄」三級道路系統、兩處道路考古遺址（朱氏下弄、劉家下弄），加上瓷業水運河道與三閭廟碼頭。

Hutian: the kiln site that made Jingdezhen possible

Five kilometres from the Imperial Kiln Factory, in Hutian village, lie 40 hectares of kiln waste mounds, workshops, kiln chambers, roads, wells and house foundations spread across twelve distinct production zones. This is where, between the 10th and 13th centuries, northern and southern ceramic techniques were fused and the stable production of qingbai — the pale blue-white ware — was achieved. Everything Jingdezhen later became rests on that.

距御窯廠僅5公里的竟成鎮湖田村，40公頃範圍內分佈着窯業堆積、作坊、窯爐、道路、水井與房基，共十二個窯業片區。10至13世紀，正是在這裏融合南北製瓷技術、實現青白瓷的穩定生產——景德鎮後來的一切，皆由此奠基。

Gaoling: the hill that gave the world the word "kaolin"

Forty kilometres northeast, in the hills above Yaoli, are the 241.1 hectares of the Gaoling china-clay mines — open cuts, adits, tailings heaps, washing ponds, old haulage paths, water channels, work sheds, hearths and altars. The component also takes in the Dong River transport route that moved the clay down to town: the waterway itself, the Dongbu wharf, the old street above it, and the stone stele that set the rules of the trade.

東北四十公里外的浮梁縣瑤里鎮高嶺山，是241.1公頃的高嶺瓷土礦遺址：露採遺跡、洞採遺跡、尾砂堆、淘洗池、古道、引水渠、工棚、灶台、石台與祭台。此部分亦包含把瓷土運往鎮區的東河水陸運輸遺存——東河原料水運河道、東埠碼頭、東埠古街，以及訂明行規的「奉憲勒石永遵」碑。

Changling: the stone mines

Further out — more than fifty kilometres from town, in the mountains of Changming village — 973.4 hectares of forest and river valley sit above three veins of porcelain stone running southwest to northeast. Two clusters are inscribed: the Dawukeng open workings, with their haulage roads, living quarters and shed remains; and the Xiaowuli valley, where mine adits, glaze-stone processing workshops, house and shed foundations, old paths, water-powered crushing mills and early kiln waste all survive together.

更遠處，距鎮區逾五十公里的浮梁縣瑤里鎮長明村山區，973.4公頃山林與河谷之下，是三條自西南向東北延伸的瓷石礦脈。列入的有兩處：大午坑瓷石明礦遺址——明礦、運輸古道、生活聚集區與工棚遺址；以及小塢里溪谷瓷石開採加工遺址——礦洞、瓷石釉果加工作坊、房址、棚址、古道、水碓頭採石區與早期窯業堆積。

Jiaotan: the fuel country

A wood-fired industry needs forests, and Jingdezhen’s were thirty kilometres north, in Jiaotan. The 473.1-hectare component covers the firewood forests and the old village architecture of Lifang, plus the Jian Stream route — the waterway and its log-holding sandbanks — that floated fuel down to the Chang River and into the kilns.

柴窯產業離不開山林，景德鎮的柴薪來自北面三十公里的浮梁縣蛟潭鎮。這一473.1公頃的組成部分包括禮芳村窯柴山林及古建築群，以及連接上游產區與昌江的建溪窯柴水陸運輸遺存——水運河道與堆洲。

Why the Committee said yes: nine centuries of invention

The case for inscription is a chain of technical leaps, each one legible in a different part of the property. Hutian, 10th–13th centuries: the fusion of northern and southern methods and reliable qingbai ware. Luomaqiao, the Imperial Kiln Factory and Guanyinge, 13th–15th centuries: the "two-ingredient" body recipe — clay plus stone — and cobalt from the Middle East, which together produced blue-and-white porcelain.

列入的理據，是一串技術躍進，而每一步都能在遺產的不同部分讀到。湖田，10至13世紀：融合南北製瓷技術，青白瓷穩定燒成。落馬橋窯址、御窯廠窯址、觀音閣窯址，13至15世紀：「二元配方」（瓷土加瓷石）與來自中東的鈷料相遇，創燒青花瓷。

Then 15th–16th centuries: the two-ingredient recipe spreads, output and quality climb together, and the technique goes on to shape Europe’s own high-fired hard-paste porcelain. By the 16th century Jingdezhen is the centre of handcrafted porcelain for the entire world. From the 17th to the 19th, European enamel colours arrive and are turned into falangcai and fencai wares, while the industry settles into the water-linked geography this inscription maps: production centre, clay country, fuel country, all on one river system.

再到15至16世紀：「二元配方」普及，產能與質素同步攀升，並進而影響歐洲高溫硬質瓷的製作。16世紀，景德鎮成為世界手工製瓷中心。17至19世紀，歐洲彩料傳入，創新出珐琅彩與粉彩；產業亦逐步定型為此次列入所勾畫的水運格局——生產中心、原料產地、燃料產地，同繫於一條水系。

A single piece passes through seventy hands before it is finished.

一器之成，過手七十二。

— Song Yingxing, Tiangong Kaiwu (1637) · 宋應星《天工開物》

What a traveller can actually visit

Forty-five sites sounds daunting; in practice the property divides neatly into a town day and a mountain day. In town: the Imperial Kiln Factory ruins and the Imperial Kiln Museum, the China Ceramics Museum, the excavated lanes of the old kiln district, and Hutian five kilometres out. In the hills: Yaoli, with Gaoling above it and the Dongbu old street and wharf below — a short drive from Changling. Jiaotan’s firewood country is the quietest of the five and the least set up for visitors.

四十五個點聽來嚇人，實際上可以拆成「城裏一天、山上一天」。城裏：御窯廠遺址與御窯博物館、中國陶瓷博物館、老窯區的考古巷弄，以及五公里外的湖田。山上：瑤里，上有高嶺、下有東埠古街與碼頭，離長嶺不遠。五者之中，蛟潭的窯柴山林最為安靜，接待設施亦最少。

Jiangxi’s five World Heritage properties

Four of the five sit within a few hours of each other, which is the quiet argument for Jiangxi as a whole: a province where a World Heritage porcelain city, a granite pilgrimage mountain and a Taoist landscape are all one comfortable drive apart.

五項之中有四項彼此相距不過數小時車程——這正是江西的底氣所在：一座世界遺產瓷都、一座花崗岩朝聖名山、一片道教山水，皆在舒適的一程車途之內。