Cultural heritage
Overview
 
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts (cultural property
Cultural property
Cultural property are the physical constituents of the cultural heritage of a group or society.-Definition:Article 1 of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 defines cultural property as follows:...

) and intangible attributes of a group or society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

 that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Cultural heritage includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally-significant landscapes, and biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

).

The deliberate act of keeping cultural heritage from the present for the future is known as Preservation (American English) or Conservation (British English), though these terms may have more specific or technical meaning in the same contexts in the other dialect.

Cultural heritage is often unique and irreplaceable, which places the responsibility of preservation on the current generation.
 
x
OK