Cultural Heritage Will Now Be Called 'Gukga Yusan' (National Heritage)

Changdeokgung Viewing Pavilion

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] After 60 years, the term ‘Cultural Property’ will be replaced with ‘National Heritage.’ National Heritage is broadly categorized into Cultural Heritage, Natural Heritage, and Intangible Heritage.

The Cultural Property Committee and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee held a joint subcommittee chairpersons’ meeting at the National Palace Museum on the 11th, where they delivered a comprehensive improvement plan for the naming and classification system of cultural properties to the Cultural Heritage Administration.

The background for promoting the improvement of the naming and classification system of cultural properties is to overcome the limitations in meaning of the term ‘Cultural Property,’ which is currently used domestically and internationally.

The current Cultural Heritage Protection Act, enacted by adopting Japan’s Cultural Property Protection Act, has been criticized for having an unstructured classification system. In particular, the term ‘Cultural *Jae*’ (財), which strongly implies the ‘economic nature of past artifacts,’ and the use of the term ‘Cultural Property’ to refer to natural objects and people have been pointed out as inappropriate. Since the late 1990s, with the popularization of the term ‘Cultural Heritage,’ there have been continuous calls for a name change that aligns with public expectations.

Additionally, there have been criticisms that the classification system under the domestic Cultural Heritage Protection Act differs from the international heritage classification system under UNESCO’s 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Accordingly, the previously categorized ‘Cultural Property’?which was divided into Tangible Cultural Property, Intangible Cultural Property, Monuments, and Folk Cultural Property?is now classified into Cultural Heritage, Natural Heritage, and Mixed Heritage according to the UNESCO World Heritage classification.

For non-designated cultural properties, a new concept of ‘Listed Heritage’ will be applied. The so-called ‘Local Cultural Property,’ which previously lacked legal grounds among non-designated cultural properties, will be renamed ‘Local Heritage.’

The improvement work on the ‘Naming and Classification System of Cultural Properties’ has been actively pursued since January of this year, based on multiple studies and discussions conducted since 2005. A nationwide survey conducted last March showed that 76.5% of the public (1,000 adults surveyed) and 91.8% of experts (404 cultural property-affiliated and professional committee members) agreed on the need to improve the term ‘Cultural Property.’