I never noticed that - well spotted Rob - maybe the CIA turned off their power when they took that shot...
North Korea is dark on most satellite shots. They just don't have the infrastructure to keep reliable power anywhere.
I have the "world at night" map in my office. On a semi-related note, I don't know if I'll have more or less than 17,000 christmas lights this year, but I gotta wonder what that looks like from above - it was pretty cool from the ABC News helicopter
I work part time for EDS and we all have one of those images as our windows wallpaper. Doesn't Japan just light up? And I never realised how densley populated central America was. How do those people survive without beaches?