Why it looks like this

Huainan, in Anhui province, was assembled around coal: mines opened at different spots along the seams, each with its own workers' town, and the 'city' is the sum of those pieces strung along roads and railways south of the Huai River.

That history gives the map its broken, multi-centred look — urban islands separated by farmland, subsidence lakes left by old mine workings, and power stations that burn the coal on the spot.