Curtis Melvin, a dedicated doctoral student in the United States, has spent a great deal of time and energy to offer people a better look at one of the world's last secretive countries: the dictatorship of North Korea. 

Normally on Google Maps, the tourist-unfriendly country is completely unlabeled -- even basic things about it, such as the names of major roads. But with a team of volunteers working with Curtis, and two years of devoted labor, Curtis Melvin was able to put together an image of North Korea, piece by digital piece.

He used publicity images, old maps, somewhat obscure documents, books and whatever he could find online to figure out where what was, and what went where.

Most of the population lives in a rough poverty. While Kim Jong II has many mansions, complete with golf courses, playgrounds, massive swimming pools and gardens, entire towns aren't even connected to the power grid. More horrifying was Melvin's documentation of massive graveyards -- sometimes taking over entire mountains -- that are a suspected sad result of the mass famines that wracked the country in the '90s. An estimated 2 million Koreans perished.

The project is called "North Korea Uncovered", and if you are interested in learning more, or want to download your own Google Maps view of North Korea,  you can check it out right over here.