The northern city of Taiyuan will transform a disused coal mining area into a national park, local land resource authorities said on Wednesday.

Covering an area of 3.1 square kilometers, Xishan National Park is planned to have a cultural square, a museum and other attractions. The first phase of the project will be completed by the end of 2013, according to a spokesman with the Taiyuan land resource bureau.

The museum will exhibit the tools commonly used in mining and latest technology. The park will also act as memorial for the thousands of Chinese buried there by the Japanese durinig the Second World War.

"The items not only witnessed the history of the world's industrial development from the late 1930s, but also China's modern industrial development as well as historical recorder," the spokesman said.

As one of the thousands of coal mines operating in Shanxi province, the largest energy provider in China, the Baijiazhuang coal mine began operation in 1934.

The mine, which used to produce 1.3 million tonnes of coal annually, was virtually exhausted of coal in 2010.

Taiyuan, capital of northern Shanxi Province, which relied mainly on coal-mining in the past, is among the pilot cities designated by the State Council to conduct reform of the coal industry. Substandard mines were shut down and the smaller ones merged into mining conglomerates.

Pei said in the future, tourists will be able to experience the miners' lives, riding a mining train and even drilling and blasting coal walls with explosives.

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