Orxon Valley Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site
As the homeland of the Central Asian nomads for more than two millennia, the Orxon River Valley contains a unique abundance of outstanding monuments and archaeological remains illustrating the long history of nomadic civilization – including the stone age remains at Moiltyn Am and Orxon-VII, the prehistoric graves and petroglyphs bordering the Orxon River, the ruins of the ancient Uighur capital of Xar Balgas, the Türkic monuments to Bilge Xan and Kül-Tegin, the ruins of the Mongol capital of Karakorum, the monasteries of Erdene Zuu, Tövxen and Shanx, and a great number of other properties. Due to its location on trade routes, ample water supplies, reasonably sheltered nature, and its great size, the Orxon Valley has clearly been of exceptional importance to the nomads, and provides striking evidence of the way in which successive nomadic peoples were based in this area and were anchored to a series of fixed points of strategic, ecological or mythological-religious significance.
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Mongolia's first cultural World Heritage Site
The Orxon Valley Cultural Landscape is Mongolia’s second UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed in 2004), and Mongolia’s first cultural property to obtain the World Heritage designation according to the 1972 UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a valuable international instrument for the identification and protection of the cultural and natural heritage of humanity; its primary mechanism, the World Heritage List, serves to identify sites considered to have a unique and lasting universal significance. Inclusion in the World Heritage List implies a local, national and international commitment to protect and conserve the property, and to ensure its transmission to future generations.
The Orxon Valley Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site encompasses an area of approximately 150-thousand hectares in the aimags of Övörxangai and Arxangai, including a buffer zone, a protected area, and four strictly protected areas surrounding the monuments of Xarxorin-Erdene Zuu, Xöshöö Caidam, Tövxen Monastery, and Xar Balgas. In accordance with the Orxon Valley Cultural Landscape Site Management Plan submitted to UNESCO by the Government of Mongolia, all economic activities in the World Heritage Site and its surrounding buffer zone must be strictly controlled, and a special authority is to be established to manage the site.
Criteria for Inscription as a World Heritage Site
The Orxon Valley was inscribed in the World Heritage List as a unique property illustrating significant stages in human history, demonstrating an important interchange of human values, and bearing exceptional testimony to the living nomadic cultural traditions. Designated as a "cultural landscape", the Orxon Valley exemplifies the interaction between successive nomadic civilizations and their natural environment. The landscape retains an active role in contemporary society, closely associated with the traditional way of life.
Stages in History
The Orxon Valley contains an abundance of historical and archaeological monuments attesting to the continuous human occupation of this region since the early stone age. The valley is home to some of the most important collections of Palaeolithic remains in Central Asia, as well as one of the greatest concentrations of keregsur, slab graves, deer stones and similar prehistoric monuments. The valley also contains a variety of significant monuments left by the Türks, Uighurs and early Mongols – including the funerary complexes devoted to Kül-Tegin and Bilge Xaan, the vast Uighur capital city of Xar Balgas, the Mongolian imperial capital of Karakorum, and the monasteries of Tövxen and Erdene Zuu.
Interchange of Human Values
The historic sites and remains of the Orxon Valley attest to the long-standing importance of this region as a centre of cultural and economic exchange. Excavations conducted in the ruins of Xar Balgas and Karakorum have revealed a diversity of objects of foreign origin, brought by traders from along the Silk Route or presented as gifts to the Xaan. Meanwhile the accounts of medieval European travellers vividly depict the cosmopolitan character of Karakorum, said to have housed places of worship representing no fewer than twelve different nations and faiths. The Orxon Valley also contains a great number of monuments representing a mixture of cultural traditions – such as temples and palaces bearing the influence of Tibetan, Chinese and Mongolian architectural styles, and steles and inscriptions combining Türkic, Sogdian, Mongolian, Chinese and Tibetan scripts.
Living Cultural Traditions
For the past two millennia, nomadic herders have grazed their animals on the meadows of the Orxon River Valley, and have relied on the nearby permanent settlements as centres of commercial exchange, adminsitration, ritual activity and artistic production. Today the Orxon Valley remains the focus of a vibrant nomadic culture, whose traditional technologies, spiritual worldview and folk arts make a significant contribution to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. A wide range of spiritual and artistic traditions remain intimately associated with the temples, monasteries, and sacred natural sites of the cultural landscape. The Orxon Valley also retains an important symbolic value for the Mongolian people, through its association with the lives and works of national historic figures such as Chingis Xaan, Ögedei Xaan, Altan Xan, Abtai Sain Xan, and Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar.
 | In commemoration of the legacy and teachings of His Holiness Dulduit Danzanravzhaa Fifth Wrathful Noble Xutagt of the Great Gobi (1803-1856) I did not overbearingly sophize Nor preach with pride and arrogance But having found a sense in this world Spoke the truth of my dear heart. |   |