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UNESCO lists the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor as World Heritage

In 1987 UNESCO inscribed the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, including the terracotta pits, on the World Heritage List. In the causal graph this event strengthens Humanitarian Access, a driver that strengthens People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC) — a worsening welfare path.

Sources: [1][2]

Read the full account

In 1987 UNESCO inscribed the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, including the terracotta pits, on the World Heritage List. The listing is a completed conservation-policy act. It does not open the unexcavated tumulus.

Context

Listing creates duties and a global tourist frame. The tumulus remains largely unexcavated because of conservation risk and mercury reports in Shiji. Both caution and spectacle are real.

Qin Shi Huang is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

Why it matters

Conservation-access path. Medium confidence on welfare size.

Heritage listing can fund conservation and overcrowding. Split later tourism Facts if dated.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Qin Shi Huang

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.2 · verified

    The mausoleum is his funerary landscape. The listing is a 1987 international-conservation act.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

    1. FactUNESCO lists the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor as World Heritage
    2. strengthensDriverHumanitarian Access
    3. strengthensIndicatorPeople Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC)
    Worsening path

    impact weight 0.3 · Effect from 1 January 1987 · verified

    World Heritage listing is a conservation-access instrument for the tomb precinct, with tourist-economy side effects stored elsewhere if measured.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.UNESCO — Mausoleum of the First Qin EmperorUNESCO World Heritage Centre · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site MuseumEmperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

UNESCO list 441 and the site museum independently describe the precinct.

Established: UNESCO listed the mausoleum in 1987. Not established: that listing changed a poverty series in Lintong by a known coefficient.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorQin Shi Huang
  2. contributed toFactUNESCO lists the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor as World Heritage
  3. strengthensDriverHumanitarian Access
  4. strengthensIndicatorPeople Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC)

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). UNESCO lists the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor as World Heritage. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-unesco-qin-mausoleum-1987

https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-unesco-qin-mausoleum-1987

Accessed 16 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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