A picture album on China's ancient Silk Road was officially published on Friday in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.  

The album was a joint project of the Tourism Bureau and the Information Office of the region.

With more than 460 photos depicting scenery, folk customs, and historic sites along the Silk Road, the album was completed after three year's work by more than 20 scholars all over the country.

The album also includes 61 special topics on the Silk Road to comprehensively introduce the history and culture of the ancient road in Chinese, English and Japanese.

The Silk Road was an important communication channel linking central China to the Middle Asian areas in ancient times, which wound through five provinces and autonomous regions of north China, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2003)