NEWS

UNESCO Declares Myanmar’s Ancient Buddhist Temple City Bagan a World Heritage Site

By Craig Lewis | | Buddhistdoor Global

Nearly 25 years after it was first nominated for listing, UNESCO has officially inscribed the ancient Buddhist city of Bagan in Myanmar as a World Heritage Site.* The proposal was approved during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Baku, Azerbaijan on 6 July, following a recommendation from the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which observed that Myanmar had passed new legislation governing heritage sites and had drawn up a plan aimed at mitigating the impact of growth in tourism and related infrastructure in the historic area. “Bagan is living heritage, having endured all forms of challenges for more than a thousand years,” said Myanmar diplomat Kyaw Zeya, speaking at the Baku meeting. “Today we are celebrating the joyous moment of the successful inscription of Bagan in the World Heritage List. Afterwards we will continue our efforts on conservation and management of Bagan so that this treasured heritage will remain for another thousand years.” (Channel NewsAsia) Located on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar’s Mandalay Region, the Bagan Archaeological Zone is one of the country’s principal tourist attractions and is also a popular destination for Buddhist pilgrims, who come to visit the ancient monuments dotted over a 42-square-kilometer plain ringed by mist-covered mountains. The area is home to the largest and densest concentration of Buddhist temples, stupas, and monasteries in the world, with thousands of structures dating to the 10th–14th centuries, when the ancient city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan (849–1297).

The UNESCO decision recognizes the historic and cultural significance of the site, which boasts in excess of 3,500 Buddhist monuments and is likely to accelerate already rapid growth in tourism to the area. Beginning under the 2011–16 administration of former president Thein Sein, Myanmar embarked on a major tourism drive. Bagan is now visited by hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists each year, with 282,387 international visitors to the Bagan Archaeological Zone recorded in 2016. Permits to build 42 new hotels or resorts in the area were granted in 2013, then revoked the following year. Early in 2017, permits were reissued for 25 of the developments. “Bagan is a sacred landscape that features an exceptional array of Buddhist art and architecture, demonstrating centuries of cultural tradition of Theravada Buddhist practices of merit-making, providing dramatic evidence of the Bagan period from the 11th to 13th centuries,” UNESCO said in an advisory earlier in July. “The serial property of eight components is located in the central dry zone of Myanmar, consisting of 3,595 recorded monuments. Being a complex, layered cultural landscape that also incorporates living communities and contemporary urban areas, Bagan was proposed for inscription for being an exceptional and continuing testimony to the Buddhist cultural tradition and to the peak of Bagan civilization under criteria (iii), for containing an extraordinary ensemble of Buddhist monumental architecture under criteria (iv), and for being an exceptional example of living Buddhist beliefs and tradition of merit making under criteria (vi).” (UNESCO Bangkok) Bagan was first nominated for World Heritage status in 1995 by Myanmar’s ruling military junta, but the proposal was rejected as the government was accused of ignoring expert advice on preserving and restoring the irreplaceable monuments.