FOR the residents of some ancient Chinese cities like Beijing, Nanjing and Xi'an, which are in the throes of redevelopment, memories of their past are fading rapidly.

Hutongs, or narrow alleys lined with traditional Beijing courtyard houses, and place names are being replaced by modern buildings.

Nowadays, it's almost impossible for a Beijing local to remember that the city once boasted more than 3,679 hutongs in the 1980s, a number that has been cut down by 40 percent to give way to urban roads and skyscrapers.

As a result, old place names have been fading from maps and memories.

In East China's Nanjing, once the capital of six ancient dynasties, more than 180 old place names have disappeared in the past 15 years, and the number of new place names has grown at a speed of 200 per year since 2001, according to the People's Daily.

Some place names have been arbitrarily reduced, changed and even eliminated despite the history contained within them, said the paper.

"Place names are an important part of China's national cultural heritage," said Liu Baoquan, head of the Place Name Research Center under the Ministry of Civil Affairs. "An old place name usually tells a unique story." For China, he said, every place name bears a special link with history. "With the disappearance of the old place names, there will come a day that we can't trace our culture and history."

According to official statistics, China has more than 700 counties, more than 1,000 townships, and more than 300 cities with a standing of more than 1,000 years as well as more than 100,000 ancient villages whose own residents can't tell how old they are.

"Most of them bear a name that reflects the features of a special period of Chinese civilization," said Liu. "They can be called 'living fossils' of traditional Chinese culture."

To combat the destruction, the Chinese Government has started a national program to prevent old place names from being scrapped at will. The goal is to find, sort out and analyze the remaining old place names on the basis of field work, and form an assessment system to classify them according to their importance, said Liu.

"Civil affairs authorities at different levels will review the application for place name changes in stricter ways," said Liu.

Editor: Wing