Imagine locating your residential building from a database of national geographic information.

That's realistic for urban Chinese as a senior official of surveying and mapping assured reporters on Friday that a newly completed geographic information database exists to do so.

The image included in the database covers all the large and medium-sized cities and developed areas of China, and can be distinguished by 1 metre, Lu Xinshe, director of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, said at a State Council Information Office news conference in Beijing.

"That means you can locate your apartment building from the database," Lu said.

The database also makes travelling and expedition activities easier and more convenient for the abundant and accurate geographic information it provides, he added.

The database is the result of an eight-year project, done on the scale of 1 to 50,000 in line with the existing paper-made maps, aerial photography and field surveying.

The project involved a total investment of more than 700 million yuan (US$86 million) with a participation of more than 10,000 people from central and local government departments and the military.

It covers the entire land areas of China including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in seven datasets: Elevation, image, terrain, geographic names, land coverage, raster maps and metadata.

The volume of the data totals 5.3 terabyte, equal to the storage of more than 8,000 compact discs.

Like the virtual earth simulation software "Google Earth" that has become hugely popular among Internet users across the world, the database is expected to have a wide application as people can access the data via the Internet, Lu said.

He described the database as the only one of its kind with largest scale and highest precision up to date on the Chinese mainland, saying it facilitates the decision-making of the government in land and regional planning as well as travelling and expedition for the general public.

It also helps survey and evaluate resources, disaster prevention and scientific research, Lu added.

Citing the terrain dataset, he said, it contains such physical and human features as hydrology, residential areas, transportation and boundary.

In the next five years, Lu said, his bureau will carry out an offshore islands and reefs mapping project to promote marine economic development.

Source: China Daily