Taining Geopark in east China's Fujian Province has just been included on the second geoparks list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the local government said.

Three other Chinese geoparks are also on the new UNESCO list released at the second international conference on geoparks held in Paris this month, increasing China's total number of geoparks on the UNESCO list from eight to 12.

The three other parks are the Yandangshan Geopark in eastern Zhejiang Province, the Xingwen Geopark in southwestern Sichuan Province and Hexigten Geopark in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The Fujian provincial government said that the Taining Geopark covers an area of 492.5 sq km. The park was listed as a candidate for UNESCO's second geopark list in November last year and passed the final appraisal in December.

China hosted the first international conference on geoparks in June, 2004, in which the UNESCO announced the first batch of 25 UNESCO-identified world geoparks. Eight are located in China. They are:

Huangshan Mountains in Anhui Province, Lushan Mountains in Jiangxi Province, Yuntaishan Mountains in Henan Province, Stone Forest in Yunnan Province, Danxiashan Mountain in Guangdong Province, Zhangjiajie Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, Wudalianchi, five volcanic lakes in Heilongjiang Province, and Songshan Mountains in Henan Province.

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2005)