Northwest China's Gansu Province, rich in culture relics and a former thoroughfare on the ancient Silk Road, is building a series of museums along the road.

Su Guoqing, director of the provincial cultural relics bureau, said that a string of museums each with a specific theme have been or will be built along the section of the Silk Road in the province.

The Silk Road linked China with Central and West Asia to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean between the second century BC and the eighth and ninth centuries AD.

The large amount of cultural relics along the Silk Road triggered the idea of building a series of theme museums which include an ancient animal fossil museum, glazed pottery museum, Dunhuang art exhibition center and Lanzhou earthquake museum.

Next only to Shaanxi and Henan provinces, Gansu has the most quantity of culture relics in China, with 133,000 ancient sites discovered.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2006)