The Ministry of Land and Resources yesterday named 11 national geological parks to preserve and research for their unique geological heritage.

On the first level are tourist attractions such as the Stone Forest in Yunnan Province, Zhangjiajie in Hunan, Songshan Mountain in Henan, and Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi Province.

Most of the parks contain special landforms, such as karst - limestone regions with underground drainage and cavities and passages caused by dissolving rock - volcanoes, relics of ancient glaciers and landscapes formed by landslides.

Two of them, Zigong in Sichuan and Chengjiang in Yunnan, are famous for their animal fossils.

It was not easy to select which parks to place on the protection list from the vast number of different geological specimens nationwide, said Sun Wensheng, vice-minister of land and resources.

Because of China's wide range of geological phenomena, it has been included in the United Nations' World Geological Park Plan, which aims to establish 300 parks throughout the world, Sun said.

He said China will put more of these parks on the list in the next five to 10 years.

The ministry is currently revising related regulations that urge local governments to take specific protection measures, and carry out surveys on the country's geological sites.

(China Daily 03/17/2001)