Moving many images over a background image

[Olaf Frączyk <olaf cbk poznan pl>]

Hi,
I have a background image (a geographical map).
On this map I want to have small images representing equipments.
The images need to get events from mouse, and need to be easily moved
(the user can move these images using mouse to another location within
the background map, he may right-click to get a menu etc.).
The number of images will be between 100 and 1000. They will be bitmaps
32x32 or 64x64 size.
What is an efficient way to do it?
For every image a separate gdk window?
I cannot put the images into background, because if image is moved, the
background will be corrupted.
Also a separate one window for images over the window with background is
not a solution because of the same reason (if user moves one image and
does it over another image).
Or maybe there is some gdk interface to layers?
Or I should use opengl for it (I don't want to do it, because it has to
run on xterminals, and I can't be sure if they provide opengl
extension).
BTW, is there any tutorial for graphics programing using gdk? 

Best Regards,

Olaf Fraczyk