Tourists visit the Tianchi lake on the Tianshan in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Dec. 12, 2007. The 37th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee (WHC) inscribed China's Xinjiang Tianshan on the World Heritage List as a natural site on June 21, 2013. Xinjiang Tianshan is a serial property totaling 606,833 hectares and consisting of four components which are located along the 1,760 km Tianshan range, a temperate arid zone surrounded by Central Asian deserts. [Xinhua/Yin Dongxun]

The 37th session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee (WHC) on Friday inscribed northwest China 's Xinjiang Tianshan natural site on the World Heritage List, the session's chairman announced.

"Let me congratulate China on behalf of the entire committee for the inscription of the Xinjiang Tianshan natural property on the World Heritage List," Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the 37th WHC session said during the plenary session.

Huang Wei, vice-chairman of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, expressed gratitude to the committee for adding the Xinjiang Tianshan property to the list, saying that the inscription showed the outstanding universal value of the property.

"We are very excited to see our wonderful and unique site inscribed on the World Heritage List," he said. "It also reflected China's high protection standard in safeguarding this natural property for our future generations."

Huang, who is here attending WHC session, said China was looking forward to further strengthening cooperation with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and other heritage centers to explore the potential for the site.

China's National Commission for UNESCO nominated the Xinjiang Tianshan natural site as word natural heritage to UNESCO on January 29, 2010.