Often, mappers are advised by admin to use OSM as inspiration for their work.
So naturally, some of us might gravitate towards the more extreme or interesting examples of real world mapping, like this.
One thing that this, and many other weird examples of mapping have in common is their location - China.
As it turns out, every map of China is geofiction - by law ! According to Article 61 of The 1992 Mapping and Survey Law of the People’s Republic of China, any surveying or mapping of mainland China is illegal without specific authorization from Beijing.
So bottom line, anything you see in China on OSM, Google Maps, or any other map, is unreliable unless you confirm it with an outside source.
What complicates things is that some of the more extreme stuff is real. For example, this33-km bridge over the open sea is real because it leads to this realport (though I can’t confirm if the mountain in the middle is real).
The good news is that we can still use Dubai for inspiration.
Maybe.