Google Maps makes its biggest update yet – spanning 17 countries and 402,336 kilometres

11 Oct 2012

Google Maps has completed its biggest ever Street View yet, doubling the number of special collections and updating more than 402,336 kilometres (250,000 miles) of roads around the world.

“We’re increasing Street View coverage in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the US, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. And we’re launching special collections in South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and Mexico, among others,” Ulf Spitzer, Street View program manager, Google Maps, said in the Google Maps blog.

Among the new special collections are the Catherine Palace and Ferapontov Monastery in Russia, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taiwan, Stanley Park in Vancouver and the urban jungle of Singapore’s Fort Canning Park.

Google Maps is also launching pages from inside Kronborg (Elsinore Castle in Denmark), which was immortalised by Shakespeare in his play Hamlet.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com