The Google Earth service is the source of satellite images representing the surroundings of the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan where the Google Earth Community has discovered a massive man made landscape. Speculations have risen immediately as to the nature of the finds, and the most likely explication put forward is that the project is military-based. The Huangyangtan region in the satellite pictures delivers the view of an artificial territory whose landscape comprises mountains, streams and valleys.

With a three kilometer perimeter, the Huangyangtan site represents a scale model of an Indian occupied Chinese territory on the border of the two countries. The 450 by 350 km area in the Karakoram mountain range has been duplicated to the smallest detail near the Chinese village of Huangyangtan.

Although it wasn't an uncommon military practice to use sand-box type models of terrain as a part of combat training and strategy, military analysts claim that such models have never reached a similar size.