By Hu Xinran and Han Jing

Netizens have taken to the Internet to voice grievances about the latest city maps circulating throughout Hangzhou. Residents are annoyed that so many shopping centers and malls are listed on the new maps and many schools and cultural sites have been left off.

A man surnamed Cai recently posted a complaint about the changes on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, sparking the online debate. In a few minutes, his post was retweeted hundreds of times. Citizens assert that the Hangzhou map should not be so commercial.

When the musical The Romance of the West Chamber was showing at the Hangzhou Dongpo Theatre, Cai bought new map to find the location of the theatre. He could not find it and noticed that many other cultural sites were not listed on the map.

“As a city with profound culture, Hangzhou attracts huge amount of tourists,” he said. “Those commercial sites are really important, but there is no reason to remove these cultural sites from the map.”

Comparing this year’s map with last year’s, places like Dongpo Theatre, Hangzhou Theatre, Zhejiang Music Hall and other cultural locations are not shown. Many branches of budget hotels are easily found on the map and are even marked with glaring logos.

Some people insist that it is not a wise change since Hangzhou aims to build a cultural city.

While the chief editor of Business Tour Yang Xiaochun holds the different view that the tourist map specifically caters to tourists who are interested in different things.

Hangzhou is not famous for its theaters and music halls, so the change of map is reasonable, he said.

Ying Qihao, vice president of Zhejiang No 1 Mapping Institution, said it is not possible to mark every site on the map. He said that the priority is to list the basic facilities shown on the map, but the places well-known by locals may be removed.

He also explained the Hangzhou map is a commercial map, it charges the customer 1,500 yuan ($235) for every spot on the map, and an advertisement can cost as much as 10,000 yuan.

Zhou Fuduo, a professor at Zhejiang University in the department of regional and urban planning, said that in foreign countries commercial maps with advertisements are free for the citizens and tourists and questioned whether the maps in Hangzhou should be free. As a cultural city, maps in Hangzhou should highlight its culture free of charge to tourists and the citizens.