Building cities and towns on mountains is an important mode of urban development in the 21st century, and carrying out and having a mountainous land suitability evaluation for urban development is the strategic base and the firm support for the implementation of the strategy of "Constructing Mountainous Cities". Since the second half of 2011, counties, districts or cities have carried out, one after another, evaluation of mountainous land suitability for urban development within their respective territory, and the evaluation results have been applied in the revision and compilation of "General Land Use Planning (2010-2020)" at the county-and town-level in Yunnan Province based on the strategy of "Constructing Mountainous Cities", especially with regard to how to ensure a reasonable landscape of urban and industrial development in mountainous areas, which achieved obvious effects. With evaluation results reported from these counties and towns, Yunnan eventually successfully implemented its strategy of "Protecting Farmland in Flatland Areas and Constructing Mountainous Cities", by which more than 80% of quality farmlands in flat areas throughout the province were brought under permanent effective protection and the occupation of farmlands for development purpose reduced substantially. Turning to mountains for suitable land for urban and industrial development provides a new and huge space for urbanization and industrialization, and offers a very effective solution to the outstanding conflict between farmland protection and ever-growing construction land demand.
