World Heritage status sought for corridor

In August, a team of 20 cyclists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan departed from Xi'an, Shaanxi province, to traverse the ancient Silk Road.

The journey took them to many Chinese cities before they arrived at their destination, Kazakhstan's Masanchi, where the Dungan people - a branch of China's Hui ethnic group - settled after emigrating from China more than a century ago.

From Sept 14 to Dec 8, more than 70 Buddhist cultural relics excavated along the Silk Road in Shaanxi province, Gansu province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will be exhibited at the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.