NEW BRIDGE: The 28,996-meter No.4 Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, the longest suspension bridge in China and the third longest in the world, opens to traffic on December 24, 2012 (SUN CAN)

Museum Boom

China is home to 3,589 museums, including 3,054 state-owned and 535 private ones, according to information released at a conference on cultural relics on December 25, 2012.

"The government will further promote free museum admission and improve the quality of displays and public services," said Minister of Culture Cai Wu at the conference.

In 2011, the Palace Museum in Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City, received 14 million visitors, twice the number of visitors in 2002. During national holidays, it welcomed even more visitors, with a record-high 182,000 people visiting the museum on a single day in 2011.

Geoinformation Survey

China will launch its first national survey that will examine the country's geographic conditions later this year.

The survey, with investment of about 1.1 billion yuan ($176 million), will take three years to monitor China's natural and geographic conditions relating to humans, the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation said in a statement on December 24, 2012.

Information collected will consist of the country's territorial size, geological regions, topographic and geomorphic characteristics, as well as road and transportation networks.

The information will be used to establish a national background database on geographic conditions in the country, the statement said.

The administration also announced on December 24, 2012 that it will launch a national program to equip the country's cities with digital public services supported by geoinformation networks.

Fitness Monitoring

China will carry out fitness monitoring for school children nationwide this year in a bid to boost students' physical health, Minister of Education Yuan Guiren said on December 24, 2012.

The monitoring will be conducted by an independent institution and results will be released to students' parents in a timely manner, Yuan said at a meeting on physical education.

Sports work concerns children's physical and mental health, and their lifetime happiness, said Yuan, who urged schools to guarantee class hours for physical education.

China has tried a series of measures in recent years to promote physical education. However, the physical health of school children remains worrisome.

Official statistics show that obesity and poor eyesight are major physical problems among school children. About 67.33 percent of students aged between 13 and 15 and 79.2 percent of students aged between 19 to 22 have vision deficiency.