(Yicai Global) Sept. 27 -- Baidu Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDU] cooperated with New Shixiang, a media outlet under Beijing Shixiang Technology & Culture Co., to create City in the Rain on Baidu Maps, a virtual area that users can explore.

City in the Rain officially came to the platform on Sept. 25. Its real-world coordinates correspond to the foot of the Flaming Mountains, a place where it never rains. However, City in the Rain has various famous buildings, such as Babel, being endlessly rained upon as well as a sound museum featuring audio recordings of rain from all around the world, Beijing Morning Post reported.

The idea for City in the Rain originated from a proposal that New Shixiang put forward last year to build "a forever raining city." New Shixiang received 9,999 suggestions from 4,300 rainy day lovers for structures, vehicles, stores and other details of the city. When Baidu employees found out about the concept, they wanted to create City in the Rain on Baidu Maps with Baidu's Panorama Technique. New Shixiang and the internet giant worked together for over six months on the project.

Baidu provided the portal technology and its Panorama Technique for City in the Rain, the relevant head at the company said.

Using its panoramic data acquisition model and image identification technology, Baidu Maps has introduced virtual cities with panoramic maps at an increasing speed in recent years. Such offerings cover 475 cities. Users can gaze at wide-angle views of Shanghai Disney, a reconstruction of ancient Shangri-La or augmented reality restorations of buildings that once were.