The China Southern Airlines is to open a new air route between Jinggangshan, known as the cradle of the Chinese revolution, and Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province, on Wednesday.

Since the Jinggangshan Airport reopened on May 22 this year, a series of Chinese domestic airlines such as Air China, the China Eastern Airlines, the Shanghai Airlines and Hainan Airlines, have launched air routes linking Jinggangshan with Beijing and Shanghai.

Covering an area of 660.87 square kilometers, the Jinggangshan Mountainous rang is an revolutionary base area, where late Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and his colleagues established the first rural base for the revolution led by the Communist Party of China.

Statistics from the local tourism bureau show that visitors to Jinggangshan from home and abroad increased at 20 percent year-on-year. By the end of July, the Jinggangshan Airport had handled 12,700 tourists.

The newly-launched Jinggangshan-Guangzhou flight will fly from opposite directions every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

The Jinggangshan Airport will open air routes to other major cities such as Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Xiamen to meet the growing needs of visits to historical sites, an airport official said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2005)