On February 8th, Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) announced their plan to delete the treasure's designation number. Hence, CHA plans to restrict the use of designation numbers of treasure in official documents, cultural asset-related institutions’ homepages and remove it from textbooks, road signs, and cultural asset information boards in the mid-to-long-term.

Since 1962, under the Culture Heritage Protection Act, cultural heritages such as treasures and national treasures have been officially marked with the designation number on the front of their names for 50 years. For example, in the case of “Sungnyemun,” it was marked as “National treasure No. 1 Sungnyemun.”  However, through this improvement, the official names of designated cultural heritages will be changed to “National Treasure Sungnyemun.”

  This improvement is because there was the awareness that the designation number in front of the name of cultural heritage such as treasures, national treasures, and historical sites ranks the cultural heritages. Specifically, Sungnyemun became National Treasure No. 1 under the Culture Heritage Protection Act, which was enforced in 1962, after Japan designated it as a treasure of Joseon in 1934. However, some have called continuously for the replacement of National Treasure No. 1. The CHA has refuted the claim, saying, “The designated number of cultural heritages is not given according to the order of value, but it is simply a number according to the order of time.” Nevertheless, the argument against CHA never stopped. In 1996, there was the first claim that the National Treasure No.1 should be changed, and in 2005, Yoo Hong-Joon, the head of the CHA, said, “National Treasure No.1 is suitable for Hunminjeongeum,” sparking controversy again. After that, even when Sungnyemun was burned, someone stressed the necessity to replace National Treasure No.1. However, now that the CHA has decided to remove the designation number of cultural heritages, it has put an end to the long-standing controversy and the view of ranking cultural heritage.

Kim Ji-Sung (Director of Policy Division, CHA), “There has been a perception of cultural heritage ranking under the designation number system. However, we believe that this perception will be eliminated due to the deletion of the designated number system. The policy is also part of efforts to dispel the central protectionism that protects only designated cultural heritages. The CHA will make great efforts to establish a legal and institutional foundation to establish a comprehensive cultural heritage protection system after researching historical and, cultural heritage along the global trend.”