Computer experts and historians are to package a series of websites mapping key heritage sites of the nation under plans drawn up by the State Bureau of Cultural Relics.

It will begin a project to "build" digital museums that can vividly reflect the features of the country's major museums, said bureau director Zhang Wenbin at an international symposium of electronic imaging and visual arts, which opened yesterday at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Some famous cultural relics, such as the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Dunhuang Museum in Northwest China's Gansu Province, have already built web pages to help store historical documents, display cultural gems as well as promote exchanges with the outside world, according to Zhang.

Using digital technology to better preserve cultural relics has become popular in Europe. The 31 European countries have started to co-operate to create a culture and knowledge society by constructing Internet-based museums or historical sites, said Bernard Smith, head of the Cultural Heritage Unit of the European Commission.

He said this symposium will lay a strong foundation of co-operation between China and the European Union.

But China, lacking in experience of digital technology, has yet to develop multimedia systems exhibiting the historical sites, said Vice-Minister of Education Zhao Qinping.

Zhao said his ministry has assisted 15 big universities such as Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University to develop digital technology for building electronic museums that display the best of geology, space and other fields.

Statistics from the State Bureau of Cultural Relics indicate that 29 of China's cultural relics have been listed as world heritage sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

(China Daily April 13, 2002)