What is the meaning of lines starting with a hash sign and number like '# 1 “a.c”' in the gcc preprocessor output?

I print out the output of C preprocessor by using

gcc -E a.c

The output contains many lines like

# 1 "a.c"
# 1 "<built-in>"
# 1 "<command-line>"
# 1 "a.c"
# 1 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/stdio.h" 1 3
# 19 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/stdio.h" 3
# 1 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/_mingw.h" 1 3
# 31 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/_mingw.h" 3

# 32 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/_mingw.h" 3
# 20 "c:\\mingw\\bin\\../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.5.0/../../../../include/stdio.h" 2 3

I never seen this kind of syntax in C. Can someone explain what this is doing?