Construction of Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor Profiles Based on K-means Clustering Analysis and Recommendations for Protective Strategies

In the era of big data, data analysis techniques can deeply mine and discover information hidden in massive and diverse datasets. Based on the information of 3,057 representative inheritors provided by the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network, this paper first uses descriptive analysis to understand the basic distribution of inheritors in terms of gender, ethnicity, and region. Next, correlation analysis is employed to explore the relationships between these variables. On this basis, K-means clustering analysis is utilized to classify the inheritors, constructing a detailed profile of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) inheritors. The study finds that female inheritors are relatively underrepresented in the field of ICH, and the distribution of intangible cultural heritage exhibits a strong regional characteristic. This research aims to provide scientific guidance for the development of local intangible cultural heritage and training of inheritors.