# What am I looking at on Google Maps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2013, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662 "2013-05-18T07:18:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dorsk188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@dorsk188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorsk188)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/1 "2013-05-18T07:18:15Z")
So I was clicking through the internet, reading up on various east Asian conflicts around the turn of the last century (as you do). A lot of activity happened around a certain city (Port Arthur). So I decided to check it out on Google Maps just to get some context of land and found the nearby shoreline covered with these geometric berms of all sizes. They are all over the northern Bohai Sea (and I’m sure they’re probably some really common mundane thing, but I don’t know much about ocean-front structures). [CLICK HERE](https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=39.356069%2C121.660709&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl) for a link to images in question. I’ve been thinking about it for a few minutes and can’t figure out what they are (and I’m not even sure how to go about trying to look for something like this in a search engine). Maybe this is painfully obvious and I’ll feel dumb when I get the answer, but can someone enlighten me? (Edit: Just after posting this, it occurred to me that it’s probably some form of commercial fish farming, isn’t it?) ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/2 "2013-05-18T07:28:36Z")
Yeah, perhaps pearl cultivation? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/3 "2013-05-18T07:33:08Z")
If you zoom out, some of them look white and dry - I think they’re salt evaporation pans. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/4 "2013-05-18T10:25:16Z")
If you zoom right in the inside of the rectangles have some form of points or reticulation which is missing from nearby sea. They do not look like salt pans. I would suggest possible shrimp mass production having seen something similar in Thailand on TV. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/5 "2013-05-18T10:40:53Z")
Actually, it looks as though the answer is land reclamation in progress - detailed halfway down this page: > **[Bird conservation trapped by scientific certainty](http://theconversation.com/bird-conservation-trapped-by-scientific-certainty-9835)** > > The profile of science has risen dramatically in policy making in recent years. Climate change mitigation, the Murray Darling Basin Plan, debate over the MV Margiris: all are talked about in terms of whether… ---
**Author:** ![dorsk188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@dorsk188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorsk188)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/6 "2013-05-18T11:14:00Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Actually, it looks as though the answer is land reclamation in progress… So it is. Wow, that’s… sort of horrible… Thanks for solving the mystery, though. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-looking-at-on-google-maps/658662/7 "2013-05-18T15:03:43Z")
There’s quite a lot of fish farm there. The placemark was inside a fish farm. What appears to be land reclamation may be crab farms. Its just because they appear to have made 20 little patches with mud in them, and that looks more like a farm than just bulk land reclamation. The large silver place may have been reclamation, but perhaps they noticed they made crab habitat and … Oh and add octopus…