Update Oct 3, 12:00 pm: In order to use 3D driving directions, you'll need to have the Google Earth plug-in installed on your computer.

Getting directions is one of the most popular features on ...Read More

Update Oct 3, 12:00 pm: In order to use 3D driving directions, you'll need to have the Google Earth plug-in installed on your computer.

Getting directions is one of the most popular features on Google Maps, whether it be for driving, walking, biking or transit. Today, we are launching a new feature that allows you to bring your upcoming trip to life, by allowing you to preview your route in 3D.

Let’s say you’re planning a road trip down the beautiful coast of California’s Highway 1 and want to be able to see what the route really looks like. California’s rugged coastline is not to be missed, but the top-down view really doesn’t give you a good sense of what this majestic terrain is like. Using the 3D preview; however, you can get aerial view of the route, as if you were in a helicopter flying above the road.

To preview your own route, it is as simple as clicking on a button. Start by entering your starting point, destination, and mode of transport like any directions; in this case, driving directions from ‘Carmel CA to Big Sur CA.’ Then, just click on the “3D” play button. The map will switch to Earth view and automatically start flying you along your recommended route.

You can pause the flight at any time by clicking anywhere in the 3D view or on the pause button in the lower left. While the flight is paused, you can explore the surrounding area in 3D by clicking and dragging the map. When you are ready to resume the flight, simply click on the play button in the lower left of the 3D view.

To help you keep track of which step you are on, the current leg of the trip is highlighted in the left panel. You can also jump to a different part of the trip by clicking on a different step.

You can get back to 2D mode by clicking on the “2D” button in the left panel at any time.

We hope you enjoy your flight.

Paul Yang, Google Maps engineer

In June we launched the start of a comprehensive visual redesign for Google Maps founded on three key principles: focus, elasticity, and effortlessness. This week we’re continuing to implement that philosophy by improving and evolving a few key features.Read More

In June we launched the start of a comprehensive visual redesign for Google Maps founded on three key principles: focus, elasticity, and effortlessness. This week we’re continuing to implement that philosophy by improving and evolving a few key features.
Our new pin

Perhaps the most notable change is an update to the styling and color of our iconic pins across all Google properties. This change reflects our interface’s recent design evolution, introducing a more harmonious visual relationship between the on-map markers and the map itself.


Our on-map controls are also now more visually aligned with the rest of our design system. Together these changes reflect our recent efforts to reduce unnecessary clutter and give greater priority to information on the map.



In the header we’re also introducing more prominent buttons for Directions and My places integrated into an elastic interface that expands and contracts to best fit your browser window size.

Putting all of these changes together you get:





We hope you find this a welcome update making Google Maps more functional, effortless, and enjoyable. This is just one part of the many design updates that will continue rolling out across Google Maps in the coming weeks and months, so keep an eye out for more!

Posted by Willem Van Lancker, User Experience & Visual Designer

(Cross posted from the Google Inside Search Blog)

Searches can become stories. Some are inspiring, some change the way we see the world, and some just put a smile on our face. Today we continue our series of posts about people who have used Google to discover or do something extraordinary. Have a story? Share it. - Ed.Read More

(Cross posted from the Google Inside Search Blog)

Searches can become stories. Some are inspiring, some change the way we see the world, and some just put a smile on our face. Today we continue our series of posts about people who have used Google to discover or do something extraordinary. Have a story? Share it. - Ed.


I’ve surfed all my life. And every summer I spend a couple weeks with my family on a small island called Hornby just east of Vancouver Island. I always think that area would be paradise if only it had great surf. It turns out it does... And with the help of Google Maps and Search, local pro surfer Sepp Bruhwiler is well on his way to finding that perfect wave that breaks somewhere off Vancouver's west coast.

Vancouver Island has a large, beautiful coastline. Before Google, local fishermen would tell Sepp about these enormous waves they found along some remote part of the coast. Sepp would run down to the dock, hop in a boat, and try his luck tracking down those elusive "breaks". It was an imprecise science with mixed results.

Sepp’s quest then led him to pull up the satellite layer in Google Maps, where he scanned the coastline near his hometown of Tofino. What, exactly, was he was searching for? That tell-tale image of a line of curling white swells -- waves.

Just like Google Maps lets you zoom in to explore your city, your street and your house, that same viewing experience extends to Canada's rugged coastlines. As Sepp put it, "we navigated the entire coastline by dragging my finger across my phone." When he found what he was looking for, he zoomed in and put a virtual pin in the location of the waves. Sepp and his surfing pro friends then pulled up the weather conditions and a swell report from nearby buoys on Google Search. And, just like that, it was on!

They found great waves that had possibly never been ridden before. In the words of Sepp’s friend, Pete Devries: "To go to a spot that few people have surfed ever before, that's been breaking for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, keeps you wondering what else is out there and what else we could possibly find."

I’m inspired. Next summer when I head up north, I plan to bring my surfboard, a smartphone, and a really warm wetsuit. I can’t wait to join Sepp in the never ending search for great new waves.

Surf on...

Posted by Brett Crosby, Surfer & Director of Product Marketing.

Editor’s Note: Today's guest author is Steve Kallick, from the Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign. We are excited to support Pew in the development of this narrated tour and think that Google Earth is a great way to make Canada’s boreal forest accessible to the world. ...Read More

Editor’s Note: Today's guest author is Steve Kallick, from the Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign. We are excited to support Pew in the development of this narrated tour and think that Google Earth is a great way to make Canada’s boreal forest accessible to the world.

In just three minutes, you can take a non-stop, coast-to-coast Google Earth narrated tour of Earth’s “green halo:” the boreal forest. The Pew Environment Group takes you over the vast northern forests and waterways and unveils an ecosystem that stores twice as much carbon per acre as tropical rainforests, holds more freshwater than any other continental-scale ecosystem and teems with wildlife. Watch the tour below or download the KML file to view in Google Earth.

Pew’s Google Earth tour shows why the boreal forest is so important.

The Pew Environment Group is the conservation arm of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nongovernmental organization that works globally to protect our oceans, preserve wildlands and promote clean energy. Pew and its sister organization, the Canadian Boreal Initiative, developed this tour to illustrate the nature of the blue forest and its ability to store massive amounts of carbon, primarily in its soil and wetlands. The tour is featured at the launch of Google Earth Outreach in Canada, happening this week.

Viewers will see bears, wolves, and caribou that still roam this vast landscape, learn about aboriginal communities that depend on the boreal, view the Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the most important wetlands in the world, and the last refuges for North American Atlantic salmon.

The Peace-Athabasca Delta viewed in the Pew Environmental Group's new Google Earth tour.

Unfortunately, Canada’s boreal forest is increasingly affected by large-scale industrial activities. A rapidly expanding footprint of development already includes 180 million acres (728,000 km²) affected by forestry, road building, mining, oil and gas extraction, and hydropower.

Pew and CBI have worked with aboriginal communities, conservation groups, federal, provincial and territorial governments to protect the boreal, resulting in 185 million acres set aside from development to date, including key wetland and river areas. That total represents more than 12% of Canada’s 1.2 billion-acre (nearly 4.9 million km²) boreal forest.

Visit us online to learn more about this new tour and the steps we can take together to protect this global treasure.

Posted by Steve Kallick, Pew Environment Group

As you may have noticed, the Lat Long blog looks a lot different today. That’s because we—along with a few other Google blogs—are trying out a new set of Blogger ...Read More

As you may have noticed, the Lat Long blog looks a lot different today. That’s because we—along with a few other Google blogs—are trying out a new set of Blogger templates called Dynamic Views.

Launched today, Dynamic Views is a unique browsing experience that makes it easier and faster for readers to explore blogs in interactive ways. We’re using the Magazine view, but you can also preview this blog in any of the other six new views by using the view selection bar at the top left of the screen.



We’re eager to hear what you think about the new Dynamic Views. You can submit feedback using the “Send feedback” link on the bottom right of this page.

If you like what you see here, and we hope you do, we encourage you to try out the new look(s) on your own blog—read the Blogger Buzz post for more info.

Update Oct 25: We hope you enjoyed Dynamic Views on our blog! If you want to continue reading Lat Long using Dynamic Views, visit http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/view.

Posted by Tasha Danko, Geo Marketing Manager

We are excited to announce the launch of the Google Earth Outreach program in Canada. To celebrate the Google Earth Outreach team is directly engaging the Canadian non-profit and aboriginal communities through a week of exciting workshops and activities in Vancouver, BC. The program has been successful in helping non-profits around the world bring their stories to life through the use of Google’s mapping tools. To date, the Google Earth Outreach team has facilitated the use of mapping tools to ...Read More

We are excited to announce the launch of the Google Earth Outreach program in Canada. To celebrate the Google Earth Outreach team is directly engaging the Canadian non-profit and aboriginal communities through a week of exciting workshops and activities in Vancouver, BC. The program has been successful in helping non-profits around the world bring their stories to life through the use of Google’s mapping tools. To date, the Google Earth Outreach team has facilitated the use of mapping tools to stop mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, documented Darfur with USHMM, highlighted climate change with Al Gore, and most recently took Street View to the Amazon, just to name a few.

Both as a Canadian and Google Earth Outreach team member, I’m thrilled to bring these exciting opportunities home. Canada currently faces a wide variety of environmental and social issues that can benefit from powerful geographic visualizations.

With the launch of the program in Canada, the team aims to support the use of online mapping tools by public benefit groups seeking to address Canada’s most pressing concerns, such as the protection of the Boreal forest and Arctic regions, as well as other humanitarian and cultural issues. We are enabling organizations to quickly and easily get the resources they need to use Google Earth and Google Maps to tell visually compelling stories about their causes to millions of users. Watch the video below for a preview highlighting the work the David Suzuki Foundation is doing to protect Canadian oceans.

David Suzuki Foundation’s I Am Fish video is a great example of a Canadian organization using Google Earth to communicate their cause to a large global audience.

Eligible members of the Canadian non-profit community are now able to apply for grants of Google's tools and services including Google Earth Pro and SketchUp Pro. The launch of our Canadian website gives our Canadian users access to a plethora of resources to help them better develop their mapping projects through tutorials, a showcase of great non-profit maps, and an online community of other non-profit Google Earth and Google Maps users.

To jumpstart these mapping initiatives in Canada, the Google Earth Outreach team has partnered with Tides Canada to engage with Canadian non-profits face-to-face with two very popular and fully-booked events. Starting today, the Google Earth Outreach team will be teaching a technical, interactive three-day workshop and facilitating mapping projects among the participating non-profits and aboriginal groups. We’ll cap off our activities on Wednesday night with an exciting event for the larger Canadian non-profit community, with a keynote talk by our very special guest Dr. David Suzuki. This event will give attending non-profits a sneak peek at how other groups have used Google Earth and Google Maps to make a powerful impact on their communities.

To hear more about what we’re up to in Canada this week, check out our homepage for a different Canadian mapping example every day and follow us on Twitter. We hope these early Canadian partners will inspire you to use Google Earth and Google Maps to help tell your own story!

Maryam Ghofraniha, Google Earth Outreach

If you’re like me, your growing collection of maps in the My Places panel is getting a bit unwieldy. Every time I find a great new map or upload a new ...Read More

Today we are pleased to announce new features available in Google Earth. The Google Earth 6.1 update includes enhancements to make Google Earth easier than ever for both everyday users and business professionals.

Easier to use My Places
If you’re like me, your growing collection of maps in the My Places panel is getting a bit unwieldy. Every time I find a great new map or upload a new GPS track, it gets a little harder to find things. With this release, we’ve added a couple of new features to help you clean house a bit and find things more easily. First, we’ve added the ability to sort a folder - just right click on any folder and choose “Sort A-Z.” We’ve also made our My Places search feature easier to find; now all you have to do is type in the name of a map or a feature and it will highlight in the My Places panel.

You can now sort your My Places folders to improve organization.

Improved Street View
Building on the improvements we made to the Street View experience in Google Earth 6, we’ve now added even more Street View features, including better zoom control through the slider tool and a wider field of view similar to Google Maps. You can now also navigate from one place to another with just a single-click of the mouse. These features make Street View in Google Earth more immersive, while performance improvements create a faster, smoother overall experience.

Street View in Google Earth now has a wider field of view.

Google Earth Pro
While these features are available to all of our users, much of the work we’ve done in Google Earth 6.1 benefits power users and professionals who use Google Earth Pro, including:

• Enhanced print layout: Pro users can now include scale bars and directional arrows when printing, making it easy to include all relevant information in client presentations.
• Simplified movie maker: It’s now easier to convert saved tours to video and record live actions from the 3D viewer to really bring your presentation to life.
• Expanded data styling: Control up to 64 unique style attributes for imported datasets.
• Improved networking infrastructure: Earth Pro 6.1 received a robust network update, which offers better support for network proxies and SSL certificates commonly found in corporate networking environments.
• Combined elevation profiles and ruler tool: We know that sometimes distance is only one part of the equation. We’ve tied elevation profiles into the ruler tool, making it possible to take into account the entire 3D environment when measuring distance.

Combined ruler and elevation profile tool used to measure Yosemite’s Half Dome Peak.

We hope these enhancements make it even more fun and exciting to explore the planet, wherever you are in the world. Download Google Earth 6.1 to get started.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager

This summer, a group of Filipino mapping enthusiasts organized an impressive series of Google MapUps throughout the Philippines. The events brought together Google Map Maker mappers across the country to map their communities in preparation of natural disasters. Located in the western Pacific typhoon belt, the Philippines is struck by an average of 20 tropical cyclones every year. As demonstrated by the ...Read More

This summer, a group of Filipino mapping enthusiasts organized an impressive series of Google MapUps throughout the Philippines. The events brought together Google Map Maker mappers across the country to map their communities in preparation of natural disasters. Located in the western Pacific typhoon belt, the Philippines is struck by an average of 20 tropical cyclones every year. As demonstrated by the 2009 Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng (Parma), which left much of Metro Manila underwater, the storms are both persistent and devastating.

The extensive series of Summer MapUps was organized by mappers from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao after meeting at the Google Geo User Summit in Singapore. Following in the footsteps of super mapper Rally de Leon, who mapped extensively after the 2009 typhoons, this summer of MapUps was designed as a volunteer project for the Philippine Red Cross. The objective was to map places used during crisis, including health centers, government offices, gymnasiums and public schools used for evacuation.

All of the schools (left) and hospitals (right) in the Philippines, as mapped on Google Map Maker.
The events kicked off in the Mindanao region, with MapUps in Malaybalay, Bukidnon and General Santos City. Northern Luzon followed with a MapUp in the City of Pines, Baguio City. Baguio City was hit by a devastating earthquake a decade ago, which took the lives of over a thousand people. Volunteers wanted to make sure that they tagged important places, such as evacuation relocation sites, that would help in rescue and relief.

A show of enthusiasm from mappers at the Bukidnon MapUp and live mapping in Cebu.
MapUps in Iloilo City, Metro Manila, Zamboanga and Cebu City followed. Zamboanga mappers focused on Zamboanga Peninsula, one of the least mapped areas in the Philippines. The Cebu City volunteer mappers were geology students from University of the Philippines Visayas Cebu College. They enjoyed tagging, moderating and editing data, and vowed to continue mapping to complete the Cebu map.

Even though summer is over in the Philippines, we will still continue to add map data using Google Map Maker as an effort to help the Philippine Red Cross. If you are interested in hosting a MapUp in your neighborhood, or have other great mapping ideas, be sure to visit Map Makerpedia, which brings together lessons, tutorials and use cases from around the world.

We also would like to invite you to join our community of Filipino mappers and help us by improving the map of your neighborhood on Google Map Maker. Mabuhay!

Posted by Aileen Apolo, Philippines Country Consultant

Following the Republic of South Sudan's recognition as the UN's 193rd Member State, we have updated Google Maps and Google Earth to reflect the new country borders.

Satellite view of the Republic of South SudanRead More

Following the Republic of South Sudan's recognition as the UN's 193rd Member State, we have updated Google Maps and Google Earth to reflect the new country borders.

Satellite view of the Republic of South Sudan
Google -- along with the World Bank, UNOSAT, and RCMRD-- is also helping to create better maps of South Sudan by supporting communities who map schools, hospitals, roads, and more with Google Map Maker. The events kicked off in late April at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a satellite event in Nairobi at the same time.

The most recent of several organized community mapping events was hosted on September 7th by the South Sudan National Bureau of Statistics in Juba. Information Minister Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin indicated that such mapping efforts help bring together South Sudanese from all over the world. The events provide them with new ways to share knowledge and experiences.

Let’s continue mapping South Sudan and stay connected via our Sudan-specific email discussions.

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

We recently launched +snippets for users and publishers, making it easy to visit a webpage and then share it on Google+. We want to make sharing across Google just as easy, so today we're bringing +snippets to ...Read More

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

We recently launched +snippets for users and publishers, making it easy to visit a webpage and then share it on Google+. We want to make sharing across Google just as easy, so today we're bringing +snippets to Google Maps.

Suppose you’re planning a weekend trip to Napa. Your packing list probably includes driving directions, hotel information and a list of nearby wineries. Many of you visit Google Maps for this kind of information already. But with +snippets, Google+ users can easily share directions or places (for example) with fellow travelers. Just click “Share...” in the Google+ bar at the top of the screen, and whatever you see on Maps is what you’ll see in the sharebox—ready to share with your circles:

+Snippets on Google Maps: Directions, Places, search results

With today’s launch, Google Maps joins other Google products like Books, Offers and Product Search in having +snippets. And like Maps, what you see onscreen is what you share—just click on “Share...” in the Google+ bar to reveal the +snippet:

+Snippets on Google Books, Offers and Product Search

We’ll be rolling out +snippets to many more Google products in the future, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we can’t wait to see how other publishers customize their own +snippets, all across the web.

Posted by Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product Management

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, as Google Map Maker has experienced time and again. Following a momentous 2009 launch in Eastern Europe, Map Maker mappers hit the ground running ...Read More

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, as Google Map Maker has experienced time and again. Following a momentous 2009 launch in Eastern Europe, Map Maker mappers hit the ground running, particularly in Romania, and with each public map edit requiring reviewing, our internal reviewers could hardly keep up. This extreme mapping was a happy problem for Google, and in seeking a solution, we turned to the real experts: our local users. After a time of quiet experimenting, and reinforced enthusiasm from users at the Singapore Geo Summit, the Map Maker team is pleased to announce our Regional Expert Reviewer program, giving distinguished mappers increased reviewing capabilities within their state, country, or region of expertise around the world.

Map Maker invites users to make their mark on the world map (Singapore Geo Summit).
Our Regional Expert Reviewers earned their appointed positions by making an impressive number of high quality contributions to Google’s base map, and by actively participating with Google and other mappers on our Map Your World discussion forums. Much as Google reviewers are differentiated by a ‘G’ icon next to their username in Google Map Maker, you can recognize a Regional Expert Reviewer by an ‘R’ icon next to his or her username when they review your edits. These moderators are located all around the world, and the Map Maker team is thrilled to be working alongside such expert mappers to ensure our quality of reviews remain high in our ongoing effort to build better maps.

They’ve got the whole world in their hands! Some of our Map Maker Advocates, now also Regional Expert Reviewers, at the Singapore Geo Summit in April 2011.
Map Maker is rooted in the belief that local knowledge is essential to creating accurate maps, this is the very reason we put mapping in users’ hands. They can be reassured that their edits may be reviewed by other locals who are familiar with their area and are invested in the quality of mapping around their community. Additionally, all Map Maker contributors can, at any time, review and comment on the edits in their communities. After all, contributors know their neighborhood better than anyone else. Now, their reviewers can, too.

Posted by Robin Anil, Google Map Maker Software Engineer

Yesterday, the New York Times published a story about business listings on Google Maps that are incorrectly being labeled as closed as a result of spam. We thought it’d be helpful to share our view about this recent issue and directly assure business owners and Maps users that we’re actively working on a solution.Read More

Yesterday, the New York Times published a story about business listings on Google Maps that are incorrectly being labeled as closed as a result of spam. We thought it’d be helpful to share our view about this recent issue and directly assure business owners and Maps users that we’re actively working on a solution.

Every year, millions of businesses open, close, move, change their hours, get a new website, or make other types of changes. Because we can’t be on the ground in every city and town, we enable our great community of users to let us know when something needs to be updated. The vast majority of edits people have made to business listings have improved the quality and accuracy of Google Maps for the benefit of all Maps users.

For example, when there is a pending edit that indicates that a place might be closed, our system currently displays the label, "Reported to be closed. Not true?". Only when that pending edit is reviewed and approved does the label change to, "This place is permanently closed. Not true?".

About two weeks ago, news in the blogosphere made us aware that abuse -- such as "place closed" spam labels -- was occurring. And since then, we've been working on improvements to the system to prevent any malicious or incorrect labeling. These improvements will be implemented in the coming days.

We know that accurate listings on Google Maps are an important tool for many business owners. We take reports of spam and abuse very seriously and do our best to ensure the accuracy of a listing before updating it. That being said, we apologize to both business owners and users for any frustration this recent issue of spam labeling has caused, and we’re committed to making sure that users and potential customers continue to have the most up-to-date and accurate information possible.

Update 9/14/11 at 6:26pm: As promised, we've recently made a change to our process of displaying when a business has been reported to be closed on its place page. More specifically, we have removed the interim notification about a report having been made so that a listing will only be updated after it has been reviewed by Google and we believe the change to be accurate.

Posted by Ethan Russell, Senior Product Manager

In July, my Google Earth Outreach teammate Sean Askay and I traveled from the Ecuadorian Andes all the way to the Amazon basin with a group of journalists who report on environmental issues impacting the Amazon region.Read More

In July, my Google Earth Outreach teammate Sean Askay and I traveled from the Ecuadorian Andes all the way to the Amazon basin with a group of journalists who report on environmental issues impacting the Amazon region.

We were there at the invitation of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network to train journalists on how to incorporate compelling geographic visualizations into their stories using Google’s mapping tools. Over 20 journalists and communications specialists were represented among the newly-formed Pan-Amazonia journalist network from Amazon region countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil.

As with many a fabled Amazonian adventure, we were met with exciting challenges and adventures along the way. The first began on our bus ride through Ecuador to the Amazon - we ended up relying more on Sean’s tracking our GPS location in Google Earth to navigate to our Napo River pick-up point than on our bus driver’s directions. There were a few times that the bus driver was ready to turn around and go back, but thanks to Sean and Google Earth, we all got there in the end.

GPS track of our 9 hour bus ride from Quito, Ecuador to the Napo River

Once in the jungle, we stepped over the tarantulas and poison dart frogs to make it to our outdoor classroom at Yachana Lodge and face our next challenge: the slow internet connection. Luckily, with a Google Earth Portable Server we were able to serve satellite imagery, terrain, and vector data locally from our laptop to give the journalists easy access to Google Earth. It was one of our first trial runs with this tool, which will be very useful for future trainings and to other organizations - for example, in crisis response situations where people want to operate a full Google Earth environment despite low internet bandwidth.

Training in our “classroom” in the Amazon on the Napo River, Ecuador.

During the training we focused on developing the journalists’ skills in using Google Earth and Google Maps as research tools and for news content creation. They learned how to create quick and easy geographic visualizations to embed in a webpage with Google Maps or Google Fusion Tables, to sync photos taken in the field with GPS tracks, and to record tours in Google Earth for movie-making. With environmental threats to the Amazon coming from so many different sources, using these online mapping tools allows these journalists to cover the whole region and illustrate their stories in a visual way that’s easier for the public and policy-makers to understand.

Answering Google Earth questions during a hands-on activity with journalists.

Internew’s Earth Journalism Network and Amazonian journalists plan to use these new tools and techniques to bring the story of the Amazon to the public. James Fahn, the executive director of Earth Journalism Network, attended the training and saw many possibilities for collaboration and use of Google mapping and visualization tools for journalists covering environmental issues around the world. If this pilot project is successful, Internews hopes to bring the training to journalism networks in other countries.

Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Google Earth Outreach Program Manager

This month’s update to 45° imagery in Google Maps includes coverage of more U.S. and international cities, particularly in Spain.

For example, Girona, a city in the autonomous region of Catalonia and close to the French border, has many historical monuments in the city center. One of these monuments, Santa Maria Cathedral, features several different architectural styles because it was erected during a period of more than 400 years, beginning in the 14th century.Read More

This month’s update to 45° imagery in Google Maps includes coverage of more U.S. and international cities, particularly in Spain.

For example, Girona, a city in the autonomous region of Catalonia and close to the French border, has many historical monuments in the city center. One of these monuments, Santa Maria Cathedral, features several different architectural styles because it was erected during a period of more than 400 years, beginning in the 14th century.


View Larger Map
Another new city with 45° imagery is the city of Merida, the capital of the autonomous region of Extremadura. The city is a Roman foundation for military veterans and is full of monuments around 2,000 years old such as two Roman bridges, an amphitheater, the Circus Maximus (a horse race track), a Roman theatre, temples and more.


View Larger Map
In the U.S. we expanded coverage to cities such as Knoxville, Little Rock, Reno, Spokane, and Tallahassee to name a few. Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, features a statehouse similar to the Capitol in Washington. The city was founded in 1812 by William Lewis but archaeological research indicates the area was settled by Native Americans much earlier.


View Larger Map
Here is a complete list of updated cities:

Augusta, GA; Badajoz, Spain; Boise, ID; Boston, MA; Fairfield, CA; Girona, Spain; Knoxville, TN; Lausanne, Switzerland; Little Rock, AR; Lodi, CA; Merida, Spain; Modesto, CA; Montgomery, AL; Murrieta Hot Springs, CA; Provo, UT; Reno, NV; Salem, OR; Sebastopol, CA; Spokane, WA; Tallahassee, FL; Vacaville , CA; Vallejo, CA; Victorville, CA; Wichita, KS; Yucaipa, CA;

*Updated the post to reflect the fact that Catalonia is an autonomous region

Posted by Bernd Steinert, Geo Data Specialist

For as long as I can remember my dad has had a real knack for doing puzzles, in particular cryptic crosswords. On the other hand, I don’t have a clue when it comes to puzzles. I just don’t seem to be able to get into that “figuring out puzzles” mindset. But my time may have come with the release of a new book ...Read More

For as long as I can remember my dad has had a real knack for doing puzzles, in particular cryptic crosswords. On the other hand, I don’t have a clue when it comes to puzzles. I just don’t seem to be able to get into that “figuring out puzzles” mindset. But my time may have come with the release of a new book The Great Global Treasure Hunt on Google Earth by Carlton Books.

Filled with beautiful artwork, The Great Global Treasure Hunt allows you to take part in an interactive puzzle quest that could lead to a €50,000 prize. You can take part in a journey of discovery as the book works with Google Earth to reveal a series of textual and visual clues. Once you’ve made sense of each of these, a picture will begin to emerge leading you to a specific location on Google Earth. When you think you picked apart the clues set by the book’s puzzle master, Dedopulos, you can submit your answer online for your chance to win the €50,000 prize.


One of Google Earth’s most notable attributes is its ability to facilitate a better understanding of the world around us. With more than 700 million activations, a new breed of “armchair explorers” with a thirst for information are using Google Earth to make new discoveries and enhance their understanding of our planet - and sometimes further afield. I’m really excited that this book uses Google Earth to add a 21st century technological twist to the world of mysteries and puzzles.

Happy hunting everyone.

Posted by Phil Verney, Program Manager, Google Earth and Google Maps