Forest coverage of Zhoushan now reaches 50.23 percent and its garden area per capita reaches 14.28 square meters. [Photo/ zhoushan.cn] 

Zhoushan was awarded the title of "National Forest City" at the 2018 National Forest City Construction Meeting in Shenzhen, Guangdong province on Oct 15. 

The title represents the highest recognition of the nation for a city's ecological construction, and best reflects the city's overall ecological development.

It has been awarded annually since 2004, with the purpose of improving the urban environment and promoting green development. 

Zhoushan, known as a "garden city on the sea", proposed in 2015 the ambition of building itself into a national forest city, and has since followed a path of sound development emphasizing the harmony between human and nature, city and forest, and city and rural areas.

Data shows that the city has seen 324.4 hectares of ecological green land built or transformed over the past three years, with forest coverage reaching 50.23 percent and garden area per capita reaching 14.28 square meters.

There are so far 12 provincial level forest towns, 30 provincial level forest villages and 75 city level forest villages built in the city. 

Around 1.16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the city are absorbed annually by its forests, greatly easing the city's thermal island effect and purifying the urban air. 

The average days of good air quality over the past five years reach 361 days per year in Zhoushan, ranking among the top cities of the nation in air quality.