From this source:
In 1985 the Chinese press announced the discovery of a strip of land 1,000 metres by 15 metres, running down from a hill to a river, in Huanre County, Liaoning province. In winter when the surrounding temperature dips to -30° Celsius, the strip remains at 17° Celsius. In summer the reverse occurs, and the strip freezes to a depth of 1 metre. The locals use the strip for growing vegetables in winter and as a refrigerator in summer.
Does this land exist?
I'd love to write an answer here where this frankly intriguing phenomena has been thouroughly investigated and tested to understand how the specific combination of climate, geology and topography has combined to form something which occurs nowhere else on Earth and seems to contradict conventional wisdom.
Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to quite get that!
This claim seems to have first surfaced in an article in the Independent Newspaper in the UK written by Paul Sieveking, the editor of the Fortean Times:
47) In September 1985, the Chinese press reported a discovery on a strip of land, 1km by 15 metres, in Huanre county, Liaoning province. In winter, when the temperature drops to -30C, the strip remained at 17C; in summer, the strip froze to a depth of one metre. The locals used it as a fridge in summer and for growing vegetables in winter.
The first thing that makes me doubt that this is real is that searches for this phenomena turn up two blog posts repeating the infomation from the original independent article, without any further information, source or quote. Further searching reveals a report in the Houston Chronicle from 1985 apparenly reporting the finding in China - but yet again no reference back to the original report in China itself (Thanks @Rob_Z)
The second is that a look at the administrative districts of Liaoning Province show no area called Huanre (or similar). Similarly a Google Maps search for this name in China yields no results. (Edit: This part of the mystery appears to have been solved. It looks like the area in question is Huanren Manchu Autonomous County)
Finally, Although quoted that the "Chinese press reported this in 1985" Im supposing that something so wildly fantastic would have been picked up by other news agencies around the world, however I can find no press information, Chinese or otherwise.
