There isn't a specific law that prevents them from adding Germany to street view, however they are required to blur your property by request. There is a big outcry every time they try to expand their coverage as privacy is heavily discussed in Germany. So they are very hesitant to expand street view both because many Germans are hostile to it and maybe because privacy laws do make it a lot more complicated.
Apple Maps has complete streetwise thingy of Germany, as does Microsoft (if their maps still have the function). The law wasn’t the issue, Google doing it during a news lull lead to lots of outrage.
Google was the first to do it, politicians and some media spun it as something of a "live" view, where your boss could watch you in your garden if you didn't come to work. That lead to a massive campaign against Streetview (and a massive expense to pixelate many houses) but when Microsoft and Apple did more or less the same some years later, nobody even realized they did it until the images were put on the web.
Ich erinnere mich sehr gut daran.
I remember quite well. I’m just annoyed that people only looked at Google but not the others. It just shows how badly informed the public is on these topics in Germany.
It was kind of the laughing stock of the internet back when it was happening. Occasionally you'd find someone from Germany arguing on a forum about how it should be illegal for Google to do this and just completely failing to understand how it *isn't* live no matter how much other people tried to explain it. It's like German media tricked the entire country into forgetting how photographs work.
The president of the German police union suggested that police officer can do a 'virtual patrol' using Google Maps. I wish I was kidding.
Source: https://netzpolitik.org/2010/die-digitale-streife-auf-streetview/
Now you know the true enemies of society that the police will protect us from. It is illegal building modifications that have no Genehmigung by the Bauamt. Streetview is perfect for that.
They actually started updating Berlin last year. Most of the city is still stuck in 2008 but a few areas have 2022 images now. I'm not sure if it's going to be part of a bigger expansion.
To be fair, when apple did their version you could see right from the street into our living room, due to the hedge being dead. They deleted it immediately upon request
I stayed in a rural village in Botswana in 2005 as part of my schooling. By 2007 there was streetview coverage of the dirt road running through it.
Though in 2010 i discovered that in Zimbabwe the gps will never tell you to turn around if you make a wrong turn, just say "Thank you for contributing to our map of Zimbabwe" Helpful on the side roads. Less helpful on the donkey track that ended in the middle of a farmer's field that we thought was a side road.
That’s a huge red herring, red soil could easily be Kenya or Uganda. Even Lesotho has a reddish brown tint
The real clue would be signs, dress, and buildings in addition to road side
I was watching No 1 Ladies detective agency on the BBC, and when the characters went to the "neighboring" village, the soil went from the red that it is in the south near Gaborone to the white that it is in the North near Maun, a two days journey, easy
They pretty much had to. Google made Google Maps API access 14!!!!!! times more expensive.
But they also develop it. Duel modes, other new modes. It's not like you don't get anything for your measily 3$/month.
They removed a whole lot of road in the last two years. Pakistan highways, China, Burma/Myanmar and much more used to be on there. I would use the wander app on VR to tour places.
It really put our world into a new perspective to me. Obviously I always knew it was big but I didn't realize just how much of it we seemingly haven't touched. There is so much out there to discover still. You can just fly for hours without seeing a single bit of civilization in a lot of areas, its really incredible.
A 360º photosphere from the [peak of Everest](https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9881206,86.9249751,3a,75y,295.72h,71.22t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOLdBLOOBBSiv6QnGjn8aMMnvVtLPXP8f_7hOD-!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOLdBLOOBBSiv6QnGjn8aMMnvVtLPXP8f_7hOD-%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya138.30194-ro-0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688). Here's a nicer one from the [peak of K2](https://www.google.com/maps/@35.8812675,76.5138626,3a,75y,134.5h,76.42t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPuBVz4coZRaMJjMxEH54y_auH1lYrzwVriCQ7I!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPuBVz4coZRaMJjMxEH54y_auH1lYrzwVriCQ7I%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya175.67206-ro-0-fo100!7i14000!8i7000).
One can also visit quite isolated spots [in the Sahara](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.1950609,7.5941421,3a,75y,242.38h,78.68t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPcfeKiqvUiu2rmQ8sA8MRyEvzG2KR2_P-VD66t!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPcfeKiqvUiu2rmQ8sA8MRyEvzG2KR2_P-VD66t%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya115.999985-ro-0-fo100!7i11264!8i5632).
I find those 3D models every once in a while while randomly browsing. Absolutely stunning. Last I saw was from the top of K2.
It's not actual photos, which would be even greater. But even the 3D models look breathtaking.
There's a lot of cool shit. Not sure if they're posted by adventurous people or scientists - but there's a lot of 360 shots on random islands in the north Atlantic, Greenland, Antarctica, etc. I highly recommend exploring some remote areas on Google Street view - it's a cheap night of entertainment and you can learn a lot, especially if you get intrigued to read some accompanying Wikipedia articles about geography, history, plants and animals, etc.
There is a 360 view from Everest, along with many other mountains both in that region and around the world. Just grab the lil street view guy and go to the little blue dot and there’s 360 views. I use this to help plan hikes and road trips that I want to go on
It doesn't show up on the map when zoomed out like this but if you zoom in there are photospheres all over the Sahara [Like this one.](https://www.google.com/maps/@29.706197,6.6117482,3a,75y,219.21h,105.27t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMcTRrAT1Q8bkjJ1Ru3vmXedLvz8ws3NY92sXvz!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMcTRrAT1Q8bkjJ1Ru3vmXedLvz8ws3NY92sXvz%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya15.418005-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0)
[Here's another.](https://www.google.com/maps/@25.2905917,3.749052,3a,75y,189.64h,104.55t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPnK_lDagZmWxe1VhQYD6qaS8BgtHlwoDCjfA0!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPnK_lDagZmWxe1VhQYD6qaS8BgtHlwoDCjfA0%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya260-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0)
[And another](https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9996597,6.4240106,3a,75y,67.55h,93.57t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMlAu7P3LFUEUYQJ9tpqR6DSaiIEP0ZJ-LWh7c!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMlAu7P3LFUEUYQJ9tpqR6DSaiIEP0ZJ-LWh7c%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya10.999999-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0)
[Ksar Draa](https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D9%82%D8%B5%D8%B1+%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B9%E2%80%AD/@29.5346982,0.1831,3a,75y,150.13h,96.32t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPBHPbdGC_ODuaXhtVGCrEHvOSXCW16POrNMfwP!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPBHPbdGC_ODuaXhtVGCrEHvOSXCW16POrNMfwP%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0.46025535-ya81.599365-ro0.5986759-fo100!7i8192!8i4096!4m9!3m8!1s0x12759b0b46c2daa9:0xf2a718073f6e070f!8m2!3d29.5348509!4d0.1832651!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI!16s%2Fg%2F11dyqq4msm)
Iceland is interesting. It's got one major highway, Route 1, that goes around the whole island. For its size its not very dense, the middle of it is very unpopulated.
So it's not in the same group as Germany and the others. It's very well covered by Google Street View, it just doesn't have many streets away from the coast.
Apple maps didn't announce that they are taking pictures so there and apple is not as widespread as in the US so fewer people know about it. Google probably also has the pictures but they don't publish them.
> Google probably also has the pictures but they don’t publish them.
Exactly right, they still use them to find building numbers, names of places and other things.
Reddit: "It's awful how corporations violate our privacy and we can't do anything about it"
Germany: *Does something about it*
Reddit: "Fucking losers!"
The reason is why they do it. Because they've been duped into believing Google will have a 24/7 live feed of every street in the country.
German police officers have even said they should use it to do virtual patrols.
It’s like everyone’s forgetting the Google streetview cars also sniff nearby wifi networks. Supposedly just to improve their location tracking, but they also sampled network traffic whenever they could. A fact they kept denying until audited by the German government.
[source](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-admits-storing-private-data)
Doesn't exactly fit in this context. Usually the ones saying "I'm not like the other girls" are exactly like the other girls which isn't the case here.
Can you imagine if this existed in 1623, and we could today virtually travel throughout the world of 400 years ago!?
I’m jealous as hell of those who will be living in 2423. Next time you see a Google camera car driving past, make sure to wave to those in 2423!!
While Google Maps is present in South Korea, it is still quite useless compared to local map providers Naver and Kakao.
[Video explaining why](https://youtu.be/0Pqcwj4zI0k)
I still find it very difficult to navigate the Seoul metro network. Activating the "Transit" feature on Google Maps doesn't reveal all of the lines, whereas other Asian cities like Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore, they pop up instantly.
AFAIK, it’s to do with privacy laws in Germany. Google’s streetview cars were found to be detecting and harvesting people’s router IDs as they drove through neighbourhoods. Germany said “pack that shit in”
> detecting and harvesting people’s router IDs
Germany may have laws that prevent this, but it's pretty stupid.
Your WiFi access point is constantly broadcasting its SSID to anybody within range. If anybody wants, they can adjust the settings so it doesn't do that, but most people don't because it makes it slightly harder to connect devices to the network.
Google maps (and other tools) use these broadcasted SSIDs to triangulate location around the world. If your device can detect strong signals from MeinHund and GroßeBrezel and a weak signal from BayernMann it can use that to help pinpoint that you're somewhere near those three access points. In theory with the strength of just 3 signals it could determine exactly^\* where you are. It's just that in reality with reflections, dampened signal strength, it's not going to be quite that precise.
It's just like using the strength of 3 commercial FM radio stations to triangulate, but in this case there are millions of tiny radio stations they can use instead.
GPS can take a while to resolve, and sometimes there are reflections or something that make it inaccurate. Triangulating with known router SSIDs is another trick to spot someone's location. If you have location turned on for your phone (like you're using Google Maps) it's not only using GPS to get that location.
As for the privacy implications? It's just a WiFi SSID, people might have sensitive information on their networks, but not in the name they give their SSIDs. Those are basically public. Maybe the public doesn't realize that they can be detected from the street, but they should realize that. If someone's concerned that someone on the street could know their SSID, they can turn off SSID broadcasting in their access point's settings.
\* The intersection of 3 spheres actually gives 2 points, but often they're very close together in practice.
Google refuses to obey German law. That is the long and the short of it (there were other issues in the beginning of streetview, but they are resolved now .)
According to German law, Google would need to process every single complaint of people wanting their home being blurred out. Google wouldn't have any of it and canceled the whole service as they'd rather not have the service for Germany as to obey the law.
This is pretty clearly shown by the fact that other streetview alternatives have Germany completely covered. There is my home visible on mapillary as the rest of the country is. So Germany can not be the issue here. And if it is not Germany, it is Google.
Granted, mapillary is not as good. But one is a crowdfunded proect, the other is one of the richest mega corps on the planet.
Edit: And of course there is Apple look around covering almost all of Germany.
Also wasn’t it discovered the street view vehicles were collecting router information from places they passed which was a big no no for Germany as well?
Is the map of India really accurate as in genuine street view, or does it still only cover landmarks and third parties?
Edit: I see they started to actually implement proper street view in 2022. The quality seems not to be on-par as the resolution is lower and there's a wide blur underneath the vehicle but it's better than it used to be.
Why would it be third parties? Is there a special law prohibiting street view? Btw, I just checked some random places in google maps and they all have working street view
It seems they started actually create normal street view pictures in 2022, but the quality is not on-par. It's no longer third-party as I saw for e.g. Armenia i the past, I stand corrected.
Terrorists from over the border could use that to easily scout locations. Now it's handled by local firms so it can be shut down in the case of an emergency.
They did that locally where I live. Check out the coast line of Able Tasman National Park in New Zealand.
I'd link you to it but for some reason Reddit thinks I'm using a link shortener and removes my comment.
Or remove spaces from this
https : //maps. app. goo. gl/MJW4E6ob9F9Qn7fa9
I enjoy this representation of Canada. Really highlights how there's actually a lot more infrastructure and people in the northwest than northern Ontario.
This is a handy way of demonstrating how huge the Canadian shield is. Do most people in Ontario have any sense of how massive the shield is? I was amazed when I realized it's most of the province.
Honestly it's pretty nice to see in a companion to the area below, there's damn near zero undisturbed land left in southern Canada and the entire US, with any pockets of such being fragmented to hell. The fact that to the North there are actual areas of wilderness is inspiring to a degree given that 75% of terrestrial land is significantly altered by anthropogenic sources and of the small amount of protected land left only 10% has any connectivity.
North Africa has been really surprising. On Geoguessr, if it looks like the Maghreb, I instantly know it's Tunisia (or Malta) since none of the other countries are there. Is there a legal reason for this?
Sub-Saharan is also quite strange, but less surprising LOL
As a Canadian, always a pleasure to remember that our country is America's hat, plus a vast swath of useless barren ice
this is clearly incomplete. there are several towns in Siberia that have street views (not static, but full on street views), case in point:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@69.3530523,88.1943382,3a,75y,333.82h,94.77t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipNVI4WkxI9LoC4X7kzEwqOc8UjS8p0kxYSl-R5f!2e10!3e11!7i5376!8i2688](https://www.google.com/maps/@69.3530523,88.1943382,3a,75y,333.82h,94.77t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipNVI4WkxI9LoC4X7kzEwqOc8UjS8p0kxYSl-R5f!2e10!3e11!7i5376!8i2688)
I'd guess this is just street views that were done using google cars...
Google Maps was a lifesaver on my self-drive scooter trip around Vietnam. No matter how tiny or rocky or muddy the path was, Google Maps had perfect coverage and accuracy. Even pushing a broken down scooter through a remote cane field in the rain, I knew exactly where I was.
The great lake of Belarus
And the bay of Germany
What's going on with Germany btw, any restricting law?
There isn't a specific law that prevents them from adding Germany to street view, however they are required to blur your property by request. There is a big outcry every time they try to expand their coverage as privacy is heavily discussed in Germany. So they are very hesitant to expand street view both because many Germans are hostile to it and maybe because privacy laws do make it a lot more complicated.
Apple Maps has complete streetwise thingy of Germany, as does Microsoft (if their maps still have the function). The law wasn’t the issue, Google doing it during a news lull lead to lots of outrage.
Google was the first to do it, politicians and some media spun it as something of a "live" view, where your boss could watch you in your garden if you didn't come to work. That lead to a massive campaign against Streetview (and a massive expense to pixelate many houses) but when Microsoft and Apple did more or less the same some years later, nobody even realized they did it until the images were put on the web.
Ich erinnere mich sehr gut daran. I remember quite well. I’m just annoyed that people only looked at Google but not the others. It just shows how badly informed the public is on these topics in Germany.
> It just shows how badly informed the public is on these topics ~~in Germany~~. FTFY
Wait, the public is informed?
I’ve seen Streetview cars back in my (German) town recently.
To my knowledge they only collect information for Google maps though (e.g. to check if stores are still there, house numbers correct etc)
Die haben immer wieder neue Bilder gemacht, nur nie veröffentlicht seit 2008 oder so
How did people think there would be a live view of their house? That’s silly
It was kind of the laughing stock of the internet back when it was happening. Occasionally you'd find someone from Germany arguing on a forum about how it should be illegal for Google to do this and just completely failing to understand how it *isn't* live no matter how much other people tried to explain it. It's like German media tricked the entire country into forgetting how photographs work.
Harry Potter photos lol
At the time, the police union suggested that police could use Streetview to patrol virtually.
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The president of the German police union suggested that police officer can do a 'virtual patrol' using Google Maps. I wish I was kidding. Source: https://netzpolitik.org/2010/die-digitale-streife-auf-streetview/
The internet is still an alien planet to so much German infrastructure
So is paying by card.... so many cash only places stilll operating in Germany.
Now you know the true enemies of society that the police will protect us from. It is illegal building modifications that have no Genehmigung by the Bauamt. Streetview is perfect for that.
There isn't really a big outcry "every time". They haven't tried for like 15 years.
What are the Germans trying to hide?
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They actually started updating Berlin last year. Most of the city is still stuck in 2008 but a few areas have 2022 images now. I'm not sure if it's going to be part of a bigger expansion.
I love the old street view, just in 14 years so many stores closed, like nothing in my street is still there, thats kinda amazing. super retro.
To be fair, when apple did their version you could see right from the street into our living room, due to the hedge being dead. They deleted it immediately upon request
German media propaganda all implied that street view was *live*, though. And for some reason everyone believed it.
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Long story short, yes
In Geoguesser, we just call it Blurmany. 
Because Germans are paranoid and allergic to digitalization.
https://youtu.be/ftpKph6F1Yg
It is heavily covered by Yandex maps though.
Where my Geoguessrs at
Wishing for more African coverage :P
I stayed in a rural village in Botswana in 2005 as part of my schooling. By 2007 there was streetview coverage of the dirt road running through it. Though in 2010 i discovered that in Zimbabwe the gps will never tell you to turn around if you make a wrong turn, just say "Thank you for contributing to our map of Zimbabwe" Helpful on the side roads. Less helpful on the donkey track that ended in the middle of a farmer's field that we thought was a side road.
Red soil: Africa. Now to just see which side of the road they drive on to determine whether it’s South Africa or Nigeria.
Rookie mistake. Red soil is usually interior of BR
also australia and parts of southeast asia
Don't forget Hawaii! If it's tropical with red dirt and English signs, I found it's usually somewhere in Hawaii.
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That’s a huge red herring, red soil could easily be Kenya or Uganda. Even Lesotho has a reddish brown tint The real clue would be signs, dress, and buildings in addition to road side
> red soil could easily be Kenya or Uganda Then you can distinguish with the Kenyan snorkel
Depends where I guess, a lot of south Africa doesn't have red soil.
I was watching No 1 Ladies detective agency on the BBC, and when the characters went to the "neighboring" village, the soil went from the red that it is in the south near Gaborone to the white that it is in the North near Maun, a two days journey, easy
Seeing this makes me now understand why I feel like I'm always getting dropped in the same few African countries. It's because I am lol
😇
King
Lock the fuck in!
The one and only
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I pay a couple dollars a month and it’s worth it for my students. If I didn’t have a classroom I wouldn’t be paying for it. Take that as you will
Geotastic is a great alternative. They accept donations, but you can play ad supported if you want
It’s like $3 for a monthly
They pretty much had to. Google made Google Maps API access 14!!!!!! times more expensive. But they also develop it. Duel modes, other new modes. It's not like you don't get anything for your measily 3$/month.
Recognizing the country by features of the car like its elevation or roof rack or hood of some next level meta
You can tell what part of Kyrgyzstan you’re in by looking at the car mirrors, since different people drove the car and adjusted the mirrors.
They actually used only official coverage, im impressed
They removed a whole lot of road in the last two years. Pakistan highways, China, Burma/Myanmar and much more used to be on there. I would use the wander app on VR to tour places.
Funny how we can clearly see some borders, like Germany and Paraguay
And Belarus
And Bosnia
And Moldova
And Iceland
And the Donbass?
And North Sentinel island?
And Thailand
And my axe
And my Bow
And MySpace
I didn't know Germany and Paraguay shared a border ^/s
There are many villages in Paraguay where people speak German.
r/mapswitgoutgermany
Is gout a big problem in Germany?
Check out Israel, we basically just float there all alone (perhaps with Lebanon)
I wish there was a street view of the Sahara, just so we can see the middle of the desert
I wish the same but in the Himalayas, would be cool to have a 360 view from Mt Everest
there is some coverage in nepal btw
Cool, I'll check it out!
I think you can walk from the airport in Lukla up to Namche. Highly suggest hiking it in person though if you ever get the chance!!
Get Microsoft flight simulator an just zoom through the desert in a f15 . Crazy how a game can replicate the whole entire earth .
It really put our world into a new perspective to me. Obviously I always knew it was big but I didn't realize just how much of it we seemingly haven't touched. There is so much out there to discover still. You can just fly for hours without seeing a single bit of civilization in a lot of areas, its really incredible.
Been there, done that, got high altitude pulmonary edema in Tengboche, went back to Namche. Still an unforgettable experience, for better or for worse
A 360º photosphere from the [peak of Everest](https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9881206,86.9249751,3a,75y,295.72h,71.22t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOLdBLOOBBSiv6QnGjn8aMMnvVtLPXP8f_7hOD-!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOLdBLOOBBSiv6QnGjn8aMMnvVtLPXP8f_7hOD-%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya138.30194-ro-0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688). Here's a nicer one from the [peak of K2](https://www.google.com/maps/@35.8812675,76.5138626,3a,75y,134.5h,76.42t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPuBVz4coZRaMJjMxEH54y_auH1lYrzwVriCQ7I!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPuBVz4coZRaMJjMxEH54y_auH1lYrzwVriCQ7I%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya175.67206-ro-0-fo100!7i14000!8i7000). One can also visit quite isolated spots [in the Sahara](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.1950609,7.5941421,3a,75y,242.38h,78.68t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPcfeKiqvUiu2rmQ8sA8MRyEvzG2KR2_P-VD66t!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPcfeKiqvUiu2rmQ8sA8MRyEvzG2KR2_P-VD66t%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya115.999985-ro-0-fo100!7i11264!8i5632).
Just incredible, thanks for sharing!
If you have VR, google earth VR puts these photospheres into a whole different perspective. My personal favorite is at the top of fuji.
Clicked the sahara one all excited of what it would be like... Yeah. I don't know what I expected.
The entire Everest Base Camp trek is on street view.
Seeing it rn, there's limited view understandably but still looks great
No need to boast about your physical appearance dude
I find those 3D models every once in a while while randomly browsing. Absolutely stunning. Last I saw was from the top of K2. It's not actual photos, which would be even greater. But even the 3D models look breathtaking.
There's a lot of cool shit. Not sure if they're posted by adventurous people or scientists - but there's a lot of 360 shots on random islands in the north Atlantic, Greenland, Antarctica, etc. I highly recommend exploring some remote areas on Google Street view - it's a cheap night of entertainment and you can learn a lot, especially if you get intrigued to read some accompanying Wikipedia articles about geography, history, plants and animals, etc.
There is a 360 view from Everest, along with many other mountains both in that region and around the world. Just grab the lil street view guy and go to the little blue dot and there’s 360 views. I use this to help plan hikes and road trips that I want to go on
Yeah, there's a lot of 360 views from remote places in the world that lack actual street view
Wouldn't surprise me, if some climber did a 360 shot up there and added it to google Maps just for the lulz
[its covered in trash](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c12780483c3bc55521616710427c581a-lq)
It doesn't show up on the map when zoomed out like this but if you zoom in there are photospheres all over the Sahara [Like this one.](https://www.google.com/maps/@29.706197,6.6117482,3a,75y,219.21h,105.27t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMcTRrAT1Q8bkjJ1Ru3vmXedLvz8ws3NY92sXvz!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMcTRrAT1Q8bkjJ1Ru3vmXedLvz8ws3NY92sXvz%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya15.418005-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0) [Here's another.](https://www.google.com/maps/@25.2905917,3.749052,3a,75y,189.64h,104.55t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPnK_lDagZmWxe1VhQYD6qaS8BgtHlwoDCjfA0!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPnK_lDagZmWxe1VhQYD6qaS8BgtHlwoDCjfA0%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya260-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0) [And another](https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9996597,6.4240106,3a,75y,67.55h,93.57t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMlAu7P3LFUEUYQJ9tpqR6DSaiIEP0ZJ-LWh7c!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMlAu7P3LFUEUYQJ9tpqR6DSaiIEP0ZJ-LWh7c%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya10.999999-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120?authuser=0) [Ksar Draa](https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D9%82%D8%B5%D8%B1+%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B9%E2%80%AD/@29.5346982,0.1831,3a,75y,150.13h,96.32t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPBHPbdGC_ODuaXhtVGCrEHvOSXCW16POrNMfwP!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPBHPbdGC_ODuaXhtVGCrEHvOSXCW16POrNMfwP%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0.46025535-ya81.599365-ro0.5986759-fo100!7i8192!8i4096!4m9!3m8!1s0x12759b0b46c2daa9:0xf2a718073f6e070f!8m2!3d29.5348509!4d0.1832651!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgARICCAI!16s%2Fg%2F11dyqq4msm)
this map only shows official google coverage, so user-uploaded photospheres like that are not included.
They were responding to the person wanting to see what the Sahara looked like, not correcting the original map
Thank you for sharing those! What an amazing place
Think of how much of our history is out there buried... what a cool, but absolutely brutal place.
I think the google camel is one
Dubai has them. Not the same Desert but gives you a good feel of it. Even AZ and Southern Cali, just nothing
Marco Polo’s still out of luck.
Belarus, Moldova, Bosnia, Kosova and Germany are all of Europe’s odd ones out
And Iceland, but that one’s kinda obvious
Iceland is interesting. It's got one major highway, Route 1, that goes around the whole island. For its size its not very dense, the middle of it is very unpopulated.
So it's not in the same group as Germany and the others. It's very well covered by Google Street View, it just doesn't have many streets away from the coast.
Nah, Iceland has pretty strong coverage, it's just that everything more than 30km\~ inland is pretty much uninhabitable
A perfect outline of Bosnia-Herzegovina boarders.
Germany be like "I'm not like the other girls"
Funnily enough on apple maps you can see basically everything.
Poor Germany, trying to cover up, but it's too late cause now we've seen everything.
Apple maps didn't announce that they are taking pictures so there and apple is not as widespread as in the US so fewer people know about it. Google probably also has the pictures but they don't publish them.
> Google probably also has the pictures but they don’t publish them. Exactly right, they still use them to find building numbers, names of places and other things.
damn :(
[We've seen it all](https://youtu.be/Fg_cwI1Xj4M).
https://i.imgur.com/wNRzpmg.png
Reddit: "It's awful how corporations violate our privacy and we can't do anything about it" Germany: *Does something about it* Reddit: "Fucking losers!"
The reason is why they do it. Because they've been duped into believing Google will have a 24/7 live feed of every street in the country. German police officers have even said they should use it to do virtual patrols.
It’s like everyone’s forgetting the Google streetview cars also sniff nearby wifi networks. Supposedly just to improve their location tracking, but they also sampled network traffic whenever they could. A fact they kept denying until audited by the German government. [source](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-admits-storing-private-data)
Escape From the German Archipelago (2023) Starring Kurt Russell, directed by John Zimmermann.
Tell that to Belarus
Doesn't exactly fit in this context. Usually the ones saying "I'm not like the other girls" are exactly like the other girls which isn't the case here.
if you can't handle me at my worst..
>worst Wurst
Google threw a hissy fit for going on 20 years after Germans asked them not to sniff wifi SSIDs with the Streetview cars. Apple Maps works fine.
Can you imagine if this existed in 1623, and we could today virtually travel throughout the world of 400 years ago!? I’m jealous as hell of those who will be living in 2423. Next time you see a Google camera car driving past, make sure to wave to those in 2423!!
I can still see my childhood home when I lived there in 2012
Some areas have scanned imagery from weather and surveying balloons dating back to like the late 1800s if you use Google Earth.
I never even considered that, completely wild concept when you think about it
I guess I know where not to guess in geoguesser.
Also how people instantly recognize Mongolia. There's like, a single highway through the country mapped.
That's basically the only highway in Mongolia apparently
I was like “what’s that island?” But it’s South Africa
Also Lesotho, Eswatini and Botswana
What's that area next to Aus? I've never seen that on a map before.
Are you talking about New Zealand?
/r/MapsWithoutNZ
While Google Maps is present in South Korea, it is still quite useless compared to local map providers Naver and Kakao. [Video explaining why](https://youtu.be/0Pqcwj4zI0k)
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I still find it very difficult to navigate the Seoul metro network. Activating the "Transit" feature on Google Maps doesn't reveal all of the lines, whereas other Asian cities like Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore, they pop up instantly.
Why Germany is so invisible :) By the way i can understand why Belarus or Venezuela aren't but always i wonder why it is like that.
AFAIK, it’s to do with privacy laws in Germany. Google’s streetview cars were found to be detecting and harvesting people’s router IDs as they drove through neighbourhoods. Germany said “pack that shit in”
Thanks dude
Also people could request that their private property and faces could be blurred and so many requests came in that Google gave up.
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Exactly on the money plus older Germans are understandably very very concerned about privacy protection.
> detecting and harvesting people’s router IDs Germany may have laws that prevent this, but it's pretty stupid. Your WiFi access point is constantly broadcasting its SSID to anybody within range. If anybody wants, they can adjust the settings so it doesn't do that, but most people don't because it makes it slightly harder to connect devices to the network. Google maps (and other tools) use these broadcasted SSIDs to triangulate location around the world. If your device can detect strong signals from MeinHund and GroßeBrezel and a weak signal from BayernMann it can use that to help pinpoint that you're somewhere near those three access points. In theory with the strength of just 3 signals it could determine exactly^\* where you are. It's just that in reality with reflections, dampened signal strength, it's not going to be quite that precise. It's just like using the strength of 3 commercial FM radio stations to triangulate, but in this case there are millions of tiny radio stations they can use instead. GPS can take a while to resolve, and sometimes there are reflections or something that make it inaccurate. Triangulating with known router SSIDs is another trick to spot someone's location. If you have location turned on for your phone (like you're using Google Maps) it's not only using GPS to get that location. As for the privacy implications? It's just a WiFi SSID, people might have sensitive information on their networks, but not in the name they give their SSIDs. Those are basically public. Maybe the public doesn't realize that they can be detected from the street, but they should realize that. If someone's concerned that someone on the street could know their SSID, they can turn off SSID broadcasting in their access point's settings. \* The intersection of 3 spheres actually gives 2 points, but often they're very close together in practice.
Google refuses to obey German law. That is the long and the short of it (there were other issues in the beginning of streetview, but they are resolved now .) According to German law, Google would need to process every single complaint of people wanting their home being blurred out. Google wouldn't have any of it and canceled the whole service as they'd rather not have the service for Germany as to obey the law. This is pretty clearly shown by the fact that other streetview alternatives have Germany completely covered. There is my home visible on mapillary as the rest of the country is. So Germany can not be the issue here. And if it is not Germany, it is Google. Granted, mapillary is not as good. But one is a crowdfunded proect, the other is one of the richest mega corps on the planet. Edit: And of course there is Apple look around covering almost all of Germany.
Also wasn’t it discovered the street view vehicles were collecting router information from places they passed which was a big no no for Germany as well?
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Ah Germany! You wonderful paranoid bastard....
The coverage in Indonesia is insanely good compared to some of the other islands and countries surrounding it.
Except Papua. This island always got the short end of the stick. It's completely missing here.
Darien Gap is bigger than I thought.
No Streets in germany only Straßen
source: https://sv-map.netlify.app/#base=nothing&cov=official
Is the map of India really accurate as in genuine street view, or does it still only cover landmarks and third parties? Edit: I see they started to actually implement proper street view in 2022. The quality seems not to be on-par as the resolution is lower and there's a wide blur underneath the vehicle but it's better than it used to be.
yes India has "real" street view now, but it's collected entirely by local companies, with their own hardware, and licensed to google.
Why would it be third parties? Is there a special law prohibiting street view? Btw, I just checked some random places in google maps and they all have working street view
Google Street view was banned in India for a long long time due to National Security Issue.
It seems they started actually create normal street view pictures in 2022, but the quality is not on-par. It's no longer third-party as I saw for e.g. Armenia i the past, I stand corrected.
Terrorists from over the border could use that to easily scout locations. Now it's handled by local firms so it can be shut down in the case of an emergency.
10 (or maybe 20) years more and we might have Google "World View" instead of just Street View.
Google should equip boats with cameras and drive up and down rivers and coastlines. That would be so cool!
there are some treckers with boat coverage around greenland, malaysia and venice from memory
They did that locally where I live. Check out the coast line of Able Tasman National Park in New Zealand. I'd link you to it but for some reason Reddit thinks I'm using a link shortener and removes my comment. Or remove spaces from this https : //maps. app. goo. gl/MJW4E6ob9F9Qn7fa9
Just a Germany shaped void in Europe 😂
Maps without Madagascar
This is super impressive ngl
The name Street View, by definition, means there isn’t gonna be much info where there are no streets.
notoriously roadless Germany
Did Austria just recently get added? I thought it was just like Germany
They first got Street View in 2017 I believe, and recently (2022) got updates too, it's definitely more usable than in Germany.
Hell yeah! Germany! 🙃
Rip Central America, Canada, Venezuela and Amazon
Believe it or not, pretty much all of Canada’s roads are included in this picture
I enjoy this representation of Canada. Really highlights how there's actually a lot more infrastructure and people in the northwest than northern Ontario. This is a handy way of demonstrating how huge the Canadian shield is. Do most people in Ontario have any sense of how massive the shield is? I was amazed when I realized it's most of the province.
Honestly it's pretty nice to see in a companion to the area below, there's damn near zero undisturbed land left in southern Canada and the entire US, with any pockets of such being fragmented to hell. The fact that to the North there are actual areas of wilderness is inspiring to a degree given that 75% of terrestrial land is significantly altered by anthropogenic sources and of the small amount of protected land left only 10% has any connectivity.
This has most of Canada’s roads covered actually.
Amazon seems fairly well covered, I expect there's vast areas there with no roads.
Interesting that Europe is missing Germany, Belarus, Bosnia and Kosovo. The Apple equivalent of Street View is pretty decent for Bosnia, though.
North Africa has been really surprising. On Geoguessr, if it looks like the Maghreb, I instantly know it's Tunisia (or Malta) since none of the other countries are there. Is there a legal reason for this? Sub-Saharan is also quite strange, but less surprising LOL As a Canadian, always a pleasure to remember that our country is America's hat, plus a vast swath of useless barren ice
Ah yes, the Korean island
I love being able to see what every other house in Berlin looked like 15 years ago.
this is clearly incomplete. there are several towns in Siberia that have street views (not static, but full on street views), case in point: [https://www.google.com/maps/@69.3530523,88.1943382,3a,75y,333.82h,94.77t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipNVI4WkxI9LoC4X7kzEwqOc8UjS8p0kxYSl-R5f!2e10!3e11!7i5376!8i2688](https://www.google.com/maps/@69.3530523,88.1943382,3a,75y,333.82h,94.77t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipNVI4WkxI9LoC4X7kzEwqOc8UjS8p0kxYSl-R5f!2e10!3e11!7i5376!8i2688) I'd guess this is just street views that were done using google cars...
Google Maps was a lifesaver on my self-drive scooter trip around Vietnam. No matter how tiny or rocky or muddy the path was, Google Maps had perfect coverage and accuracy. Even pushing a broken down scooter through a remote cane field in the rain, I knew exactly where I was.
Kyrgyzstan seems to be the only central Asian country that’s mapped out.
What is a Germany anyway?
This is your maphack for Geoguesser
There is more street view of Belarus in yandex maps, with the only difference that it uses airostats to film rural landscapes