A rural road in northern China had over a thousand street lights installed along it in a strange plan by locals meant to coax more money from the government.

The clip, shot in Xi’an City in Shaanxi Province on March 28, shows a large number of street lights being placed only 30 to 50 metres apart from each other on both sides of a narrow three-kilometre-long road.

According to reports, the area used to be fields and the government has planned to remove and resettle the local households.

In order to get more compensation from the government, local villagers came up with the idea to install the large number of lights.