China will start to create a huge new national park this year in the western province of Qinghai, Xinhua reports.

The new Sanjiangyuan National Park will cover an area of approximately 120,000m² – larger than South Korea – and is being created to protect the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong rivers.

A total of CNY1 billion (US$145 million) is being allocated for the development of infrastructure in the national park, including road-building projects, which will commence this year.

By 2020, this vast wetland and grassland area will become China’s first centrally-administered national park.

Sanjiangyuan, which literally means “the source of three rivers,” is where Asia’s three longest rivers all originate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong rivers eventually flow for a combined length of more than 16,500km.