BEIJING, Feb. 1 -- China's cultural affairs regulator has recently listed five ecological preservation areas as cultural ecology protection zones at the national level, according to an official statement.

The zones, set to focus on protecting intangible cultural heritage, are located in southwest China's Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, south China's Guangdong Province, northwest China's Shaanxi Province and north China's Shanxi Province, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The ministry will improve the construction and management of such protection zones further, and will financially support relevant local authorities to a greater extent, urging them to include construction funds in their public finance budgets for regular spending.

China has in recent years begun designating and building national-level cultural ecology protection zones to help develop traditional cultures in areas with high concentrations of intangible cultural heritage resources.

The first seven of these protection zones were officially listed in 2019.