Hangzhou, one of the seven ancient capitals, is among the first batch of 24 historical and cultural cities appointed by the State Council. A famous tourist city, Hangzhou is now the political, economic, scientific, educational and cultural center of Zhejiang Province. Hangzhou boasts numerous Intangible cultural heritages. Recently, under the correct guidance of Hangzhou Municipal Government, the functional governments have adopted many effective measures to develop protection as well as promote inheritance, protection and development.
         The majority of leaders of Hangzhou attach great importance of establishing the directory of non-cultural heritage, making it one of the major tasks and paying great attention to its quality and quantity. In 2007, Hangzhou became the first city in Zhejiang Province to establish a two-tier listing system; and so far, a whole system of four lists including 289 of the municipal level ,167 of the provincial level, and 38 of the national level. On Sep.30th of 2009, three art forms, including the art of Guqin, the Chinese Seal Cutting and the Chinese mulberry silk skills have been listed in the list of “ Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Work”. This groundbreaking result announces a major achievement in our world heritage declaration. Moreover, Hangzhou city has provided financial subsidies in batches for more than 200 listing items, made detailed protection plans as well as realizing the protecting work step by step.
         The key to the protection of Intangible culture heritage lies in the protectors and site of protection. The city actively promotes the intangible cultural heritage protection and heritage base construction. Currently, the city has 15 state level inheritors, 132 provincial level inheritors, 260 municipal level inheritors, six national folk art centers, six provincial folk art centers, four provincial heritage base, eight provincial heritage teaching base, five traditional festival protection centers, one provincial ecological protection center and four provincial classical non-heritage tourism resorts. Hangzhou also carries out the naming, awarding and support of city ethnic folk art village (altogether 4) and national folk artists (altogether 6). The last piece of work is the declaration and affirmation of the representative cultural heritage inheritors. Altogether 260 inheritors have been affirmed in three batches. Through these work, we have successfully protected a number of outstanding inheritors, rejuvenating the lifeline of living heritage of this city.