After the Wenchuan earthquake of May 2008, 19 provinces and cities in eastern and central China were paired with badly damaged counties in Sichuan. Each province was to give aid worth at least 1 percent of its local fiscal revenue of the previous year, for three years in a row. The State Council set the aim of finishing the main tasks of reconstruction in about three years.
The number of counties is reported differently. A report from June 2008 names 18. The National Development and Reform Commission later counted 24.