Local     1     (official) in Beijing promised to further protect the city’s cultural heritage (遗产), in particular the narrow streets known as hutongs.

Hutongs are     2     (common) found in the cities of North China, but they are in danger. Beijing is nowadays believed to have fewer than 1,000 hutongs, most of     3     are near the Forbidden City. Only _60_ years ago, the number of the hutong     4     (be) 3,250.

“Usually more than 100,000 people visit the Forbidden City during the National Day holidays. The visits put pressure on the     5     (protect) of cultural relics,” said Huang Yan, director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning,     6     (add) that hutongs should be protected from human damage.

The government concentrated     7     how the protection plans were carried out. Wang Shaofeng, head of the Xicheng District Government, said the area has 182 cultural relics,     8     many of them were built as far back as the Yuan Dynasty. The district of Xicheng has 1.28 million residents in its 50.7 square kilometers of land. “The most efficient way is to decrease the local population to reduce the possibility of causing harm to the heritage,” Wang said. “Each community has been required     9     (report) the status of its cultural heritage.”

No one knows for sure how many hutongs     10     (leave) in the coming 100 years.