A total of 5,922 old trees in the Chinese capital have been positioned by satellite and marked on a digital map for city planning, according to Beijing Municipal Park & Woods Bureau.

The city planning administration will find out where these old and rare trees are before they plan the city construction, Yang Zhihua, an official from the bureau was quoted by Friday's Beijing Daily as saying.

Beijing is busy building more highways and rebuilding old downtown these years and some old trees have found themselves in the way of the projects.

Not knowing the exact positions of the ancient trees in advance, the planning administration and construction companies go to a lot of trouble to alter their plans or move away the trees after the projects started, Yang said.

The ancient city has 21,375 trees older than 100 years and 3,564 of them are more than 300 years old.

The 5,922 trees positioned by satellite are growing in public parks, Yang said.

The bureau also recorded the situation of these trees and took digital photos of each one to set up a data bank, he added.

Old trees in the four districts of Dongchen, Xicheng, Chongwen and Xuanwu have been marked on the digital map of the city planning administration and those in Beijing's other four districts will be added soon.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2004)