Recently, the State Council has distributed the Circular on Launching the Third National Land Survey (the "Circular").
According to the Circular, the third nationwide land survey is scheduled to target all the land in China. And the land survey aims to check on: (1) the status quo of land use and changes in this regard, extending to categories of land, location, area, distribution, etc.; (2) the land ownership and changes thereof, including the land ownership and land use right; and (3) the land conditions, including the natural conditions and social and economic conditions of land. When the survey is conducted to look at the current situations of land use and changes thereof, attention should be put on the status quo of permanent basic farmland and changes in this regard, including the quantity, distribution and protection of permanent basic farmland. Moreover, it is made clear in the Circular that the standard time point for the third national land survey shall be December 31, 2019. Efforts will be made to carry out on-spot investigations and develop the database from January 2018 to June 2019. Thereafter, statistics generated from the land survey nationwide will be gathered together to form a database and a management system for the survey in 2020, when acceptance inspections to look at the quality of land survey will be completed and the result will be made public.