East China's Shandong province has striven to maintain balanced development between industrial development and ecological protection in the Yellow River basin with an aim to promote the development of the Yellow River cultural and tourism belt, according to a news conference held on Dec 22.

Wang Lei, head of the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, said that the province has drawn up tailor-made development plans to protect and inherit the Yellow River culture. A number of demonstration areas and pilot zones for the protection and inheritance of the Yellow River culture have been built.

While constructing the Yellow River cultural and tourism belt, Shandong has developed a batch of characteristic cultural tourism products and competitive tourism industry clusters, Wang noted.

Wang added that the province has made an overall plan to advance the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin.

The culture and tourism department has established restrictions on carrying capacities to cope with potential over tourism at its tourism sites. Efforts have also been made to strengthen the protection of historical and cultural relics. Construction in the Qufu Ancient City of the State of Lu, and the Tai'an Dawenkou National Archaeological Park has been further advanced. The province has also made great efforts to conserve and restore some major cultural relics in Shandong such as the the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion as well as the architectural complex on Mount Tai, Wang said.

More than 200 key tourism projects with a total investment of 570 billion yuan ($89.46 billion) have been built, and a total of seven Yellow River-themed tourism routes were launched to offer abundant high-quality tourism products to tourists.

The nine cities along the Yellow River in Shandong have abundant intangible cultural heritage items including 118 items on the national representative list, and 619 on the provincial level list. In the future, the province will build more characteristic cultural reserves , and research and education bases to protect the vitality of the intangible cultural heritage items and boost the innovative development of traditional cultures.

Dongying city in Shandong, which is situated on the wetlands of the estuary of the Yellow River, has become an attractive home for migratory birds. [Photo/VCG]