China will unveil a new catalogue of all the cultural and art pieces kept in the Forbidden City, in a move to better protect the nation's traditional cultural relics.

According to Liang Jinsheng, an official with the Palace Museum, many items, including 2,000-plus paintings and calligraphy works and other belongings of ancient emperors and empresses, had not previously been catalogued due to outdated views regarding cultural relics. But now, he says, any piece able to reflect the culture and history of the palace will be protected as important artifacts as part of a new plan.

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He says the sort-out-work will be done and the new category published by the end of 2010.

Covering more than 720,000 square meters, the Forbidden City has over 9,000 rooms and is located in the heart of Beijing.

The palace, a treasury of traditional Chinese culture, has preserved 1.5 million relics, accounting for one-sixth the total in Chinese museums.