A performer wears a Sichuan opera mask during the 1st International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan province May 23, 2007.
 
China will soon announce the names of 224 people who will be designated to pass on China's intangible cultural heritage (ICH), said a senior cultural official on Wednesday.

The list of 224 so-called ICH 'inheritors' of folklore, acrobatics, handicrafts and traditional medicine will be made in advance of the country's Second Cultural Heritage Day, which falls on June 9 this year, said Vice Minister of Culture Zhou Heping.

The ICH inheritors have been selected from 1,138 nominees from 31 provinces, regions and municipalities, said Zhou at the first international festival of intangible cultural heritage, which opened on Wednesday in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan Province.

As a member of UNESCO's inter-governmental committee to safeguard ICH, China has been strengthening efforts to protect ICH to save some of its intangible cultural heritages from extinction.

Last May, the country designated 518 ICHs and established a database for ICH.

In 2001, Kun Qu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera, the Chinese zither or Guqin, a solo musical instrument dating back 3,000 years, Xinjiang Uygur Muqam, a blend of song, dance, folk and classical music, and Long Song, a type of Mongolian lyrical chant, were proclaimed by UNESCO as masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

According to UNESCO, intangible cultural heritage refers to practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.

Editor: Yan