Images taken by the country's most advanced civilian Earth observation satellite were released on Monday as a senior official announced that an orbiting high-definition network will be created by 2020.

The images were shot by the Gaofen-2 satellite between Aug 21 and Monday. They show parts of cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Harbin, as well as famous sites abroad including the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

There are also images of temporary settlements in Ludian, Yunnan province, the epicenter of a 6.5-magnitude earthquake that struck in August.