Blind students in Fuzhou, Fujian province, received a gift on Thursday, the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The gift was a tactile map of Fujian that can be read with the fingers.

In September, Zheng Dahong, a graduate of the Fuzhou Blind School, was on his way from Fuzhou to Quanzhou to continue his education. He wanted to know how far it was and the names of counties between the two cities.

This aroused enthusiasm for creating a tactile map for the blind, and Zheng lined up the Fujian Academy of Cartography and Beijing Zhongkenachen Technology Co to undertake the work.

The map has been a big help for more than 350,000 blind people in Fujian province.

Guo Xiaoming, a braille translator, early map user and map editor, was excited to learn that the province's Pucheng county and Wuyishan city were neighbors and bordered the provinces of Jiangxi and Zhejiang.

"As I now work in Fuzhou, I hope there will be a tactile map of the city one day," Guo said. "The audio guide of the map on the phone is helpful for showing the directions, but we cannot learn the overall picture of the topography and landforms."

Guo is a graduate of Beijing Union University.

Back in 2012, Guo Bing, the initiator of Little Aid from Everyone (LAFE), a nonprofit organization, wanted to make a tactile map available for the blind and sought sponsors. The result of the project was China's the first barrier-free map.