On routes to tourist havens in the greater Beijing area, trains were over-loaded by as much as 40%.

CNN: From Our Correspondent: Spend, Spend, Spend

We are starting the emergence of a Greater Beijing Metropolitan Area, along the lines of the Greater Tokyo Area, stretching east, north and south into Hebei and Tianjin.

FORBES: Is Jim Chanos Right About A China Real Estate Bubble?

The figures are a bit misleading, because Beijing municipality covers an area half Belgium's size, with far-flung satellite towns and a rural expanse.

ECONOMIST: As the leaders see it, a plague of human rats in the capital

The growth of road freight and the more widespread use of private vehicles have made transportation the second area of priority for Beijing's energy conservationists.

FORBES: Magazine Article

China's central Air Force Command sent two reconnaissance planes from Beijing to take aerial photographs of the area, state media said, adding that 2, 600 soldiers from the People's Armed Police had already arrived in six towns in the quake zone.

WSJ: Quake Kills More Than 100 in Sichuan

Another new find concernsconcerns 1000 well-preserved dinosaur footprints connecting six sites in the core area of Yanqing National Geopark19 in Beijing, one of two Chinese geoparks applying to UNESCO for membership of the global network in 2013.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

"You have to think of it as like Japan or South Korea, " says Paul Bojarski, a French entrepreneur who runs an equipment-importing business in Beijing and is getting ready to invest in a ski area near there.

FORBES: All uphill from here

Beijing's Tsinghua University and the local government are developing the site, located in a desert area in north-western China, Xinhua says.

BBC: China to open atomic bomb site to tourists