Abstract:As the core carrier of diverse cultures along the Belt and Road, cultural heritage boasts significant value in that not only reflects how the ancient civilizations had dialogue, communication, collision, and convergence, but more importantly, provides valuable historical experience for the future sustainable development in terms of how different cultures treated each other on equal terms and with mutual trust, how they accommodated and learned from each other, and how they sought win-win cooperation. Through an examination of the environmental background of cultural heritage and an analysis upon the temporal and spatial features as well as material characteristics of the heritage, this paper points out that the cultural heritage protection along the Belt and Road is not optimistic, as mainly reflected in the following four problems. The environment change has taken a heavy toll on the cultural heritage; the cultural heritage is subject to weathering and pests all the time; human activities and over-tourism incur more and more damage; wars and illegal excavation among other severe destruction have become quite a concern over recent years. In light of the requirements of the Belt and Road Initiative in the new era, five coping strategies for cultural heritage protection along the Belt and Road are proposed: (1) strengthening international cooperative research on and protection against common pests threatening cultural heritage; (2) fully leveraging the role of spatial information technology in heritage protection and monitoring; (3) enhancing combined comprehensive development and utilization of cultural heritage; (4) building an information platform to achieve new integration of cultures; (5) promoting common development to realize self-motivated cultural heritage protection. The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative starts with cultural communication that is bound to increase the appeal of the Initiative. We endeavor to build a globalization-oriented community of common destiny that absorbs the influence of historical and cultural concepts and links the past, the present, and the future, with a view of boosting social, economic, cultural, and ecological win-win cooperation and sustainable development of the countries along the Belt and Road.