China has named 10 county towns as "national garden towns", the Ministry of Construction said Tuesday.

The 10 counties include Yanqing in Beijing, Tongliang in Chongqing, Luanxian in Hebei Province, Changdao in Shandong Province, Anji in Zhejiang Province, Zigui in Hubei Province and Changsha in Hunan Province.

Others are Aksay in Gansu Province, Helan in Ningxia region and Burqin in Xinjiang region.

To date, China has named 89 national garden cities, but it is the first time similar awards have been designated for the country's 2,860 county towns.

Xu Jing, an official with the Ministry, said the new development follows the government's initiative to build the so-called "socialist new countryside".

For a county town to be named garden town, it has to have a minimum "green coverage" of 40 percent, two or more parks each with a size of at least three hectares, and more than four public toilets for every 10,000 people.

It also has to have clean air and limpid water, with more than 80 percent of its solid wastes and 65 percent of the waste water treated. The title also requires a high degree of conservation of historic landmarks.

(China Daily April 5, 2006)