What is a "World Heritage Site"? Perhaps you don't have a very clear idea, but it is very possible that you have visited one or two, like the Great Wall of China, the Hiroshima atomic bomb memorial, Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Or maybe the Tikal Maya ruins in Guatemala, the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, or the Palace of Versailles in France.

Does a place have to include ancient, beautiful, or impressive architecture to be considered part of the World Heritage? What kinds of conditions must be met to qualify for inclusion on the World Heritage List? Does Taiwan have any natural or cultural assets that deserve to be treasured by all of mankind? How much do you know about such potential assets?

The Council of Cultural Affairs (CCA) has been endeavoring to have world-class cultural and natural assets in Taiwan added to the World Heritage list. To this end, two years ago the CCA began collecting opinions from various parties and selected 11 potential World Heritage sites. Five of these sites are cultural: (a) Fort San Domingo and other buildings of historical and cultural importance in the town of Tanshui; (b) the Japanese-era structures, such as the Prince Hotel, and the mining industry infrastructure in the Chinkuashih area; (c) the site of the prehistoric Peinan Culture in Taitung; (d) the Tao community and their natural environs on Orchid Island; and (e) Kinmen Island, with its historic battlefields and well-preserved traditional Chinese villages.

Four of the proposed sites are natural: the "false cypress" forest on Mt. Chilan in Ilan County, the geothermal zone of the Tatun mountains of northern Taiwan, the basalt formations of the Penghu archipelago, and Taroko Gorge in Hualien County. Finally, two potential sites-the Alishan Mountain Railway and the old Mountain Line railway in Miaoli County-are of both cultural and natural importance.

It must be admitted right off that because Taiwan is not a signatory member of UNESCO, the United Nations organization which oversees World Heritage sites, for the time being it is not possible for any of these places to be included on the list. Nonetheless, applying for inclusion requires considerable preparation time. By beginning now, not only can Taiwan get on track with the rest of the world in terms of preserving its cultural and natural assets, the effort will help generate greater domestic consensus to this end.

Taiwan, an island in a corner of the Western Pacific, has been a major stage for the evolution of living things.

First we must go back to very remote times, before the appearance of Homo sapiens. On what is today Mt. Chilan in Ilan County, there remains a "false cypress" forest left behind from the Ice Age, 30 million years ago. Between 17 and 8 million years ago, lava poured out of the sea floor in the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. Today that lava constitutes the basalt formations of the Penghu archipelago. Tectonic and volcanic activity around the same time left us with today's Tatun geothermal zone. Six million years ago, the force of the Philippine Sea tectonic plate crashing into the Eurasian plate dramatically compressed and shifted the earth, and after high temperature and high pressure tempering, today's magnificent Taroko Gorge was formed.

Then came the arrival of man. Between 2300 and 5000 years ago, prehistoric man erected monoliths in what is today Peinan Rural Township in Taitung County. More than 2000 sarcophagi have also been unearthed at the site, with thousands of jade ornaments deposited inside; these constitute the single largest burial group on the Pacific Rim. Meanwhile, on Orchid Island, an small island just southeast of the main island of Taiwan, the Tao people have preserved a rich variety of traditional customs, and are a treasure trove for anthropologists.

Three centuries ago, when the Western colonial powers sailed into East Asia, they occupied parts of Taiwan, which was strategically located along shipping lanes. Here they built Fort San Domingo (in Tanshui) and other structures of non-native design. About a century ago the Japanese colonial regime which then ruled Taiwan, aiming to exploit the lumber on Mt. Ali, built the Alishan Mountain Railway, one of the three most significant mountain railways in the world. For similar reasons they also built the old Mountain Line railway in the highlands of Miaoli.

Around that same time, mining was begun in the Chinkuashih area of northern Taiwan. This area produced more than 95% of the gold extracted in Taiwan, and gave birth to the town of Chiufen, which flourished in its day and later became known as a "city of sadness." After the government of the Republic of China came to Taiwan in 1949, the island of Kinmen became the front line in the Chinese Civil War and an important military base. A huge network of tunnels was dug out underground, while, on the surface, lovely traditional villages remained totally intact.

These 11 potential World Heritage sites richly record not only the life of our planet, but also human activity and civilization in Taiwan throughout history-from prehistoric cultures and aboriginal life to the interaction between European and Asian peoples, industrial civilization, and the face of modern war in the Taiwan Strait.

Reacting to this list of potential World Heritage sites, only recently made public, Huang Jui-mao of the Tanshui Community Action Team and an assistant professor of architecture at Tamkang University, cannot help but exclaim: "Although Taiwan is very small, it has developed so many cultural and natural assets. Just look, every one is of a different character. This is what makes Taiwan so genuinely interesting."