Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has planned to build the world's largest national park by integrating the scattered neighboring tourist resorts into a whole.

The Kanas Geological Park, now around 1,000 square kilometers, will be expanded to about ten times larger in a few years after incorporating the nearby tourist regions and grassland, according to the park administration authority.

The national park is expected to replace America's Yellowstone National Park, covering an area of about 9000 square kilometers, to become the world's largest.

The local government has invested more than 8 million yuan (US$1.06 million) to map out the incorporation plan.

Kanas geological park, almost 1,000 kilometers north of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, boasts a range of landscapes, including the Kanas Lake, China's deepest alpine lake, snow-capped mountains and grassland.

The park received 917,000 tourists in the first 10 months this year, a 32 percent growth over the same period of last year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2007)