Thematic maps for county-level land use planning in Contemporary China

Land use thematic maps are essential for the implementation of land use planning. China launched the third round of its land use planning in 2003, and the making of land use thematic maps series is one of the innovations for the new planning. The objective of this paper is to provide information about generating county-level land use thematic maps. The study area, Dachang Hui Autonomous County (178 km(2)), is located in Northern China and shares a boundary with Beijing. Methods for generating thematic land use maps are presented. These thematic maps include an existing land use map, zoning map for proposed land use, prime farmland protection map, zoning map for construction land expansion, planned land consolidation map, and planned major land use projects map. The scale for these maps is 1:50,000. All these maps are useful for researchers and local government, allowing them to be used as a reference for the study of land use mapping and support land resource management and planning.