Tea-Horse Road (Asian Corridor In Heaven) is one ofthe highest cultural transmission path in the world, as well as the significantlink between Tibet and mainland. It has witnessed the co-existence andfriendly mutual assistance between the Han nationality and the Tibet nationality. Meanwhile, it was also an international trade channelwhich promoted the close interaction between China and the countries of Southeast Asia and South Asia in ancient times.

Tea-Horse Road which used Ma Bang as the maintransportation has a long history. It has distinct clues constituted of threeavenues such as Sichuan-Tibet, Yunnan-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet, as well asnumerous branches and additional lines which connected the regions of Sichuan,Yunnan, Tibet and Qinghai province. The huge transportation network extendsfurther to Bhutan,Sikkim,NepalIndia, till Western Asia and the Red Sea in Western Africa.

Tea-Horse Road pertains to the linear culturalheritage. It links the main line between the provenance of tea, storagesites and the main places for commodity consumption. Thevisible and physical heritage consist of five parts, they are as follows: thefirst one is ancient tea garden and the old tea factory; the second one is ancient towns, post house and streetmarket; the third one is ancient path; the forth one is the ancient temples;the fifth one is bridge, well and insctiptions on precipices .Recently, the Yunnan Province list the cultural heritage in Tea-Horse Road suchas ancient towns, ancient villages, ancient architectures and ancient postroads as historical cultural cities, tourist towns,culture relic protection site sat different levels and intangible cultural heritage protection list.

The cultural heritage protection is experiencing thehistoric transformation from cultural relic to cultural heritage. However, we now lack intensive study on Tea-Horse Road,meeting  the challenges of lack ofrecognition, incomplete organization and insufficient funding. The cultural relic sin Tea-Horse Road have been severely damaged by the passed time,climatic change and natural hazard .Meanwhile, the precious traditional cultures of different nationalities alongthe line have been impacted heavily by foreign culture. Many culture relic protection site shave slipped out of the original environment context and lost the cultural connotation they should have. In addition, because of the wide distribution, various kindsof relics, complicated conditions of preservation and difficulties onprotection, only through the cultural line can series up thedispersive cultural relics and re-integrate culture and nature, constitutingthe invaluable cultural necklace on regional scale and becoming thebest place for carrying out the ecological education, cultural leisure and scientific investigation.

Date：2014.12.5   

Source： Chinese Social and Science Network