Chinese surveyors are about to travel across the country’s west, to create more detailed maps of the largely uncharted region.
The Xinhua newsagency says China does not know exactly what the terrain looks like in an area of more than two million square kilometres including 70 percent of Tibet.
The acting president of the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, Zhang Jixian, says the underdeveloped west is rich in resources, but the lack of geographical information is a major obstacle to economic development.
The surveyors will aim to provide maps on a ratio of 1:50,000, where two centimetres correspond to one kilometre.
