China to build 100 digital cities in 2010

Reporters learned from a national conference for directors of surveying and mapping bureaus January 24 that the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) will continue to promote 100 merit-based digital cities nationwide, which will rapidly push the construction and completion of the digital China geo-spatial framework.

Reporters learned that digital city construction has made significant progress since its launch in 2006 and currently, 78 cities have been involved in the construction and promotion of digital cities. The SBSM has accepted the Digital Taiyuan Geographic Information Public Platform as China's first typical model of a digital city.

Digital city construction is an important part of the digital China geo-spatial framework construction, which mainly relies on the city's basic geographic information and a related information database to establish a unified and authoritative geospatial information public platform in the city to facilitate the integration, sharing, and full use of information resources, and to speed up the process of city informationization.

As China's first typical model of a digital city, the Digital Taiyuan Geographic Information Public Platform enables people to visit Taiyuan's tourist attractions, business centers, cultural landmarks, and even small street scenes while still staying at home. During the process of building a digital Taiyuan, 5 application demonstration systems have been developed such as Taiyuan's Benchmark Land Price Query System, the Environmental Protection Monitoring Information System, Civil Air Defense Information System, Food and Drug Administration Information System, and Geographical Information Public Service System.

By People's Daily Online