Laos to update 40-year-old national maps
Play
Vientiane (dpa) - Laos is to update its national maps, currently based on 1985 topographical information, thanks to financial backing from South Korea, a news report said Monday.
Seoul had provided 3.5 million dollars towards the project, which will update the information using a larger scale of 1:2,000, and digitise the data, the Vientiane Times reported.
The results would help infrastructure planning and socioeconomic development, with the objective of getting Laos off the list of Least Developed Countries by 2020, it said.
The current maps are smaller-scale and only exist in hard copy.
South Korea would also provide cartographers to "add to the capacity of Lao officials and engineers, through learning advanced technology from experts," Ambassador Kim Soo Gwon said at a launch on Friday.
Some aerial photography and other survey work has already begun on the project, which is scheduled to run until 2017, the report said.
