The Ministry of Land and Resources on Monday urged local land authorities to overhaul the reporting system of land uses, the Shanghai Securities Daily reported.

The ministry demanded that provincial land authorities check case-by-case instances where local governments reported land as "non-new land for building purposes" to Beijing.

The materials should be handed in before Jan 20, and cases where "new land for building purposes" was misreported as "non-new land for building purposes" in 2011 should be considered illegal land uses.

China has strict quotas for "new land for building purposes".

Farmland and forestland cannot be developed as "new land for building purposes" unless allowed by the central government. But as China's rapid urbanization required more land, many local governments tried to bypass the law by reporting the "new land for building purposes" as "non-new land for building purposes".