China's Grand Canal is the world's oldest and longest man-made canal and it's still in use. Now, China has officially launched a campaign to inscribe the canal on the United Nation's World Heritage List.

According to information from the Grand Canal Protection and World Heritage Application Conference recently held in Yangzhou of East China's Jiangsu Province, a total of 35 cities in eight provinces along the Grand Canal of China will submit a joint application.

China started applying for World Heritage status for the canal in 2009. The conference in Yangzhou marked the successful completion of the groundwork for the final application.

The "Master Plan for the Protection and Management of the Grand Canal" and the "Tentative List of Sites and Grand Canal Sections for World Heritage Status" were passed at the conference.

Huo Weidong, Chief Engineer of China Cultural Heritage Research Inst., said, "On the tentative list are 132 relic sites along the canal and 43 sections of the canal in 35 cities in eight provinces. A timetable has also been established. A final draft of the World Heritage application should be finished before September 2012, and the sites and sections on the tentative list should complete preparatory work and receive an on-site assessment by an international expert panel before August 2013."

The Grand Canal is composed of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, Sui-Tang Canal and Zhedong Canal, and is over two thousand years old. It stars in Beijing and passes through Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu. The over 1100 kilometer section of the canal to the south of Shandong's Jining is still in use today.

CNTV.CN