KenGrok
Explorer
Reged: 06/28/06
Posts: 143
Loc: Germany
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[My first post ever, please be patient]
On the west side of the village Huangyangtan is what I take to be a military facility of some kind (judging by the masses of olive-colored trucks parked there). And right next to that is a scale-model of a landscape. I haven't tried to identify which region it depicts, but it doesn't seem to be a model of the region where this has been built. The model is mostly mountain ranges, complete with lakes and snow-capped peaks.
Googling Huangyangtan comes up with a number of reports about anti-desertification measures to be taken there (assuming this is the same Huangyangtan as I have found here). There does seem to be a lot of tree-planting around the facility and the model. But not enought to stop sand from blowing into Beijing. The whole area to the west looks like a military exercise area. Maybe if I could read them the giant Chinese letters painted onto some of the hills would tell me more about that area, at least.
In any case, any ideas what the function of this model landscape has?
-- KenGrok
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stiuskr
Master Guide
Reged: 04/13/03
Posts: 1317
Loc: NearEarthOrbit over WV
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Sweet find there, K. I would have to guess that we'll be able to find this somewhere along one of China's borders. Probably the Russian border, maybe the N Korean. The key to identifying the model will be in the lake patterns.
Gotta go, happy hunting everyone...
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"And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky A human being that was given to fly"....Eddie Vedder
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KenGrok
Explorer
Reged: 06/28/06
Posts: 143
Loc: Germany
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Your suggestion led me to look along China's borders and I found the area represented in the scale model. It's of territory occupied by China but claimed by India, north and south of the east end of the Karakoram range. The borders in this region are shown in red rather than yellow to indicate the dispute.
The Indian name (or Uighur, apparently) for the main area under dispute is Aksayqin Hu. If you look at a map you'll see that there are three such regions like this. A smaller one to the south is part of the scale model. A third one father west is not: the valley directly northeast of K2. Presumably it is so inaccessable in the first place that it's not of concern to the Chinese planners.
The whole area is extremely desolate. There aren't many hi-res shots of the border areas. I've included a link to about the only thing more interesting than bare dirt or ice: a hilltop fortifcation. To the east of it one can see a few groupings of artillery positions (without the hardware).
Still, this doesn't tell of what the purpose of the model is.
A couple more observations about it:
- Its dimensions are almost exactly 700 x 900 m
- At first I though that the grey-colored regions of the model represented those areas that area accessable by graded roads. This appears not always to be the case. One theory: all the trucks parked next to the model brought in recruits who are, centimeter by centimeter, in the process of painting the whole thing something other than the red it is made of.
Added 21 July
Here's what, for example, Wikipedia has to say about Aksai Chin
Wikipedia article on Aksai Chin
Edited by KenGrok (07/20/06 11:34 PM)
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Felippo
Collection Editor
Reged: 07/18/05
Posts: 1764
Loc: Hameln, Germany
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Hello
Very nice find, and very interesting. Maybe the best first time post ever.:)
Thanks a lot for that, and for the nice overlay.
Felippo
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clickable thumbnails:
          
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stiuskr
Master Guide
Reged: 04/13/03
Posts: 1317
Loc: NearEarthOrbit over WV
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Wow, good work guys! Getting ready for vacation so I haven't been on much lately. I figured it was either a border area, or maybe in a foriegn territory and was being used for guided missle navigation testing, bomb run waypoints or something similar. You know that if they've got this seemingly insignificant patch of land modeled, I wonder what else is out there?
And Braham's find looks to me like a highway network somewhere...
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"And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky A human being that was given to fly"....Eddie Vedder
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cnick6
Tourist
Reged: 07/19/06
Posts: 2
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Everyone has an active imagination. I do not believe this to be a military installation. The drilling well is a good start.
Reasons not military base:
No guard towers or posts
No fencing
Vehicles would not be painted in colors
No communications tower (or backup)
Too close to residence (could be employees, but again, its too open)
Possible explanation:
http://www.sxhsjt.cn/english/gongsi.htm#3
There are several references on Google to the "Huangyangtan Farm" project.
One interesting note, is that if you line up North and go directly south a few miles you'll see a large Nuclear Power Plant. To the SE of that is the Hydroelectric dam.
-Nick
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KenGrok
Explorer
Reged: 06/28/06
Posts: 143
Loc: Germany
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Especially when GE-ing China one's imagination can really go into turbo; there are so many unusual things there. Still, I think the model has some kind military function. Why?
- It's of a militarily-sensitive region
- Much of the terrain on the west side of the main north-south road is used by the military. The area where the map sits has been used for military exercise. North of here (OK, possibly no connection) is an airbase with weapons storage and hangars tunneled into the mountain.
- Most of the vehicles parked around the model are olive-green (well, my imagination tells me that; GE colors are sometimes pretty bad). There are many dump trucks (there seems to be a lot of activity there), but even more personnel carriers. Inside that other facility, on the west side, it's true that there are vehicles of various colors. Perhaps that one does have a civilian function?
- Too close to town? In the Chinese deserts military facilities are often right on the edge of towns, though on the side towards the hills, and away from agriculture. I have seen this hundred of times.
- It's not possible to tell whether there's a fence. Looking on the south side of the area, the one without the trees planted, there are regularly spaced tiny blobs that are a shade darker than the embankment. But, again, it's impossible to say if they represent a fence.
- There appears to a guard tower on the west as well as on the north side
- If you're referring to the tower in the middle of the facility on the east of the model, that appears to be for radio broadcasting.
But, you know, in the end it's often very difficult to to tell what you're looking at in China. From all my crawling around this and other regions of China, it's hard to tell the difference between military and civilian. And in reality there's perhaps not a strict division between the two.
I propose a contest; have forum readers suggest alternate uses. I'll go first: this is China's first miniature golf course based on the terrain of one of the territories they occupy.
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Replica of occupied India territories -- China - Huangyangtan - Scale model of landscape?
Something different -- China : Muslim cemeteries and graves
More Arabic script than I've ever seen elsewhere in GE -- Pakistan: The hills have names!
And for fun, see: China > Mystery message in the ice
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jwelgan
First Post
Reged: 07/19/06
Posts: 1
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The beauty of open source information... Beijing MAC proactive in bettering ecological environment of north China. 4th paragraph:
Quote:
Huangyangtan, the locality of an artillery shooting range, is 90 km away from Beijing and is one of the sources of sandstorms hitting Beijing. In order to improve the ecological environment there, the Beijing MAC has invested 500, 000 persons/times, millions of yuan of fund to plant trees and grow grass totalling75,000 mu. The forest coverage has increased from 0.08% at the beginning of building the shooting range to the present 62.5%. A coordinated tactics-drilling base of the military area command and a drilling base of a unit have invested large amount of manpower and material to afforestation. Now the barren hills and wastelands in the past have taken on a new green look and the forest and grass survival rate reached 90% and above. The Hongshan Military Horse Ranch has adopted such comprehensive harnessing measures as enclosing pastures where herding horse is forbidden, while growing trees and grass on these pastures to recover the deteriorated grassland. The National Afforestation Committee and the Environmental Protection and Afforestation Committee of the PLA have named the Hongshan Military Horse Ranch as the “Demonstration Base in Ecological Construction” of the state and the army.
Out of that I pull:
1. artillery shooting range
2. coordinated tactics-drilling base of the military area command
3. drilling base of a unit
4. Military Horse Ranch
I believe #1, the artillery range, is here, just to the west of the landscape. The numbers on the hills are probably used for ranging and there do appear to be craters from artillery, especially to the South. Just follow the mountain range and they will pop out at you.
Since there are military tactics drilling bases also in the city, I think it is probable the landscape is being used for those purposes.
The windmill farm is interesting though.
Hope these links work... I haven't posted before.
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BabaJehangir
First Post
Reged: 07/19/06
Posts: 1
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Quote:
I propose a contest; have forum readers suggest alternate uses. I'll go first: this is China's first miniature golf course based on the terrain of one of the territories they occupy.
They've been trying to build roads there for a long time, haven't they. The model is less than 1 sq.mile, so it's use for training infantrymen is limited. But if they want to plan roads and other civil engineering works, then this is just nice.
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Delta102
Master Guide
Reged: 07/07/05
Posts: 4983
Loc: U.S.A.
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Welcomre to GE and Great find !........You've made the New's 
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