The decision came at the 28th conference of the World Heritage Committee being held in Suzhou, a scenic city in east China's Jiangsu Province, with the cultural relics of the Koguryo regime and the Imperial Palace in northeast China's Shenyang city, the other two historical sites applied by China during the conference, also put on the list.

The three imperial mausoleums dedicated to the first and second emperors and the two empresses of the Qing Dynasty, as well as to the ancestors of the emperors, are all in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.