The US administration has recently declassified an aerial photography collection that includes 37,000 images of regions in China, Southeast Asia and islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The photos cover almost all major cities and cultural relics sites in China that existed between the 1920s and 1940s, providing comprehensive images of the country half a century ago, said Yang Lin, director of the Remote Sensing and Aerial Photography Archaeology Center of the museum, in a recent interview with Beijing Youth Daily.

The museum has sought to buy the photos from the US archives ever since museum officials came across a contents list for the declassified photo collection last year.

The photos the museum wants will cost about US$200,000, Yang said.

The museum has sent specialists to the United States to check the photos. The museum plans to buy only photos with clear images and plenty of information.

Officials have singled out more than 10,000 aerial photos covering major cities in China such as Beijing and Nanjing, and major cultural relics sites and imperial tombs.

Since the US archives will not sell copyrights for the photos, the Chinese side has to make copies of the photos to bring home.

Copies of the photos are expected to be made by the end of this year, Yang said.

A precious cultural and historical record, the complete collection of aerial photos of China will help promote the country's archaeological and geographical research efforts, scientists said.

According to US laws, classified documents remain confidential for 50 years, after which time they are declassified and made available to the public.

Scholars from Europe and China's Taiwan are also reportedly interested in purchasing photos from the collection.

The Museum of Chinese History has signed a contract with the US Archive and Records Administration that will allow them to copy the photos they desire.

Aerial photography became an important part of the map making process in the 20th century.

Aerial photographs provide a straightforward depiction of the physical and cultural landscape of an area at a given time.

When skillfully interpreted, these aerial images supply geographers, historians, ecologists, geologists, urban planners, archaeologists and other professionals with a pictorial basis often critical to their studies, archaeologists said.

Genealogists have used aerial photography to identify and locate ancestral sites.

World War II brought a rapid acceleration in the use of aerial photography for both military operations and mapping purposes.

(China Daily 05/29/2001)