World Heritage Identification Number: 1388
World Heritage since: 2012
Category: Natural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇨🇳 China
Continent: Asia
UNESCO World Region: Asia and the Pacific
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Unveiling Ancient Life: The Chengjiang Fossil Site
The Chengjiang Fossil Site, situated in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, China, offers a unique glimpse into the early stages of life on Earth. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012, this 512-hectare location has become a significant hub for paleontological research.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate. They record the early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem. The site documents at least sixteen phyla and a variety of enigmatic groups as well as about 196 species, presenting exceptional testimony to the rapid diversification of life on Earth 530 million years ago, when almost all of today’s major animal groups emerged. It opens a palaeobiological window of great significance to scholarship.
Encyclopedia Record: Chengjiang
Chengjiang is a city located in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, China, just north of Fuxian Lake.Additional Site Details
Area: 512 hectares
Coordinates: 24.6688888889 , 102.9772222222
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© Zhangmoon618, CC BY-SA 3.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
