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New Imagery for Google Earth – May 2008

[UPDATED 14-May 1510 ET – official details on the imagery updated added below.]
Google has released new imagery today for Google Earth. As usual, they are not revealing the locations yet – instead we get some hints of locations in the form of some riddles. I’ve been busy with attending the Where 2.0 conference, and haven’t had time yet to check out the imagery myself.
Here’s the answers to some of the riddles (thanks to help from some comments below): 1) Los Angeles, 2) Coronado Island near San Diego, 3) Houston, Tx, 4) Lisbon, Portugal, 5) Madrid, Spain; 6) Milan, Italy, 7) Melbourne, Australia, 8) Miami, Florida, 9) Isle of Man
Thanks to GEB readers for find a lot of the new imagery, but here are the official details from Google’s LatLong blog:

New high resolution:

Significant amount of new satellite imagery in Ecuador, Peru, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, India, Iran, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and The Philippines. Additionally, new 2.5m imagery for part of Western Australia

Updated Imagery:
Americas:
– USA: LA, San Diego, Houston, Miami, Chicago and Milwaukee area suburbs, New York City area suburbs, much of coastal New Jersey, and Harney County (Oregon).

Europe, Middle East & Africa:

– England: Suffolk
– Isle of Man
– Spain: Madrid
– Portugal: Lisbon, Guimaraes, Porto, Sevilla, Coimbra, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca
– Italy: Milan
– France: Toulon, Montbeliard
– The Netherlands: Assen

Asia & Oceania:

– Armenia: Yerevan
– Australia: Melbourne, Darwin

Updated Terrain:
– Westport, Ireland
– Hawaii
– Puerto Rico

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

Reader Interactions






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Comments

  2. Mark says

    Derry in Northern Ireland is now photographed!
    Nothing new for Drogheda though [:-(

  3. Henry says

    Yep, no. 7 is Melbourne, Australia, although the date of the satellite imagery is old (Feb 13th 2006)…

  4. David Santos says

    Porto and Coimbra, Portugal have new imagery 🙂
    I noticed in Portugal and Egypt at least, some images had been recolorized. It still the same photo, but whit new colors, wath reduces the “puzzle efect” Great job!

  6. Fido says

    Tokyo, Japan
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Singapore
    The Taj Mahal, India
    Dalian, China
    seem to have new imagery.

  10. Luke W says

    UNBELIEVEABLE!!! Thank you Google! I knew this day would come at some point and now that it has, i’m over the moon. Melbourne now has fantastic imagery. Everything is so crisp. I love it!

  11. Stuart Rowe says

    You are correct that Melbourne has now received High Resolution Imagery… However that came at a cost!!!!
    The images are older than the images that were on there a couple of days ago! The images put on there today, are from 13th February 2006!
    So thanks for the update Google….. but really what’s the point if we are going backwards!!!

  16. Lars says

    I don’t know why you guys are complaining about 2-year-old-imagery. The data from my town in Germany is from 2000…

  18. Roy says

    8 is Miami. I checked, twice. 😛
    I’m not sure which number it would count for, but greater Los Angeles (and Anaheim) got new imagery.
    Spain and Italy got new images.
    Western Egypt is pretty clear that it has new images.
    Overall i’m disappointed. The new L.A. images don’t even touch the theme parks in need of update. Knott’s, Six flags, universal, the only one with justice is Disneyland. But this is okay…

  19. Duy An says

    Thanks Google, my city has been clear, not blur more, i can see my house, my city

  21. chris says

    Good to see some further progress in coverage of the British Isles – Derry and the Isle of Man – but the contrast in quality is marked, with Derry in long November shadows and poor light whilst the IoM basks in crisp July sun, illustrating the challenges of finding good imagery at relatively high latitudes. But still nothing more for Scotland. Could GE manage something before Street View hits London?

  22. Ted says

    Over 90% of Scotland still has no high resolution.
    Part of the Orkney Islands is super low resolution. The one part in medium resolution is mostly cloud covered.
    I’ve been waiting for years for them to update this.

  23. Stuart Rowe says

    I feel for your 2000 maps Lars but the fact remains we have gone back in time.. not forward.. I think they should have left it where it stood before….
    No point in getting high res images if things arent the same.

  24. Eugene says

    Yep, the Philippines has a lot of new hi-res satellite imagery including several major cities. I’ve documented these on my blog (link is my name).

  27. sevilla says

    sevilla y la costa del sol belongs to spain and not to portugal. sevilla is the capital of all the southern region of spain

  28. chris says

    Oh dear Google – the Isle of Man is not part of “England” nor part of the United Kingdom. It is a self governing Crown dependency lying within the British Isles (Wikipedia is a good place to see more). And the welcome coverage is new high resolution, not an update.

  29. Craig says

    WOW…I can see my car at my apartment in the new Houston images. Plus, on a sad note, Astroworld, Houston’s former Six Flags park, is finally gone, with a HUGE empty field taking its place.:(

  31. Steven Powell says

    Yet again Scotland is left with mostly low quality images, what did we do wrong?

  34. David T. Olsen says

    the new navagational tools do not function effectively. The old tools were perfect! What can we do?

  35. chris says

    Montbeliard, quite a small town in France, now has 3D buildings, including many houses outside the town centrre, all in a distinctive style. Has someone done something special here?
    Also switching off the 3D buildings, noticed that the sidebar appeared to have been modified by the addition of twisties to give more room to view and setting layers. Is this new?
    Last, some of the new imagery is fantastic high resolution – see Assen in the Netherlands.

  36. Markus says

    Thank you google! Vienna, Austria updated, the cloud above my house is gone. Still, the image is from 2003 or early 2004 and much lower res than any major german cities. I guess I can’t complain, I’m really glad to see all those clouds gone which covered big parts of the city.

  37. Jim T. says

    I’ve noticed the new high resolution of many parts of Luzon island in the Philippines. Although, the placemarks or blue dots (mapped Panoramio photo images) have been misplaced by some meters. Anyway, this update is just a beta maybe, that’s why the landscape colors are not consistent; like the violet-magenta artificial color filter for the verdant green fields.

  38. toni as says

    The image for Semarang, Indonesia now has less details than previous image 🙁

  39. abu muhannadh says

    two new highresolution patches in the Maldives.
    one above Maamigili in A.DH Atoll, other above Meedhoo in R. Atoll

  40. Steve says

    Are we sure that Melbourne is 2006???
    Yes I know the date in GE says that.
    But I am pretty sure there are structures there that are later than 2006?

  42. Andy says

    Apparently there was another quiet update in the last few days, as now several areas in Thailand are in hires which weren’t yet after the May 13 update.

  43. dhono says

    My google-earth showed strange picture on:
    6 59’20” S 110 25’11″E — Eye alt 1.37 km

  44. Marek says

    Some pices of Poland have now beter resolution: a big part of Lower Silesia- from Legnica to Wałbrzych and Bielawa (Swindnica was tehere before), Lodz, Zelazny Most (near Polkowice), Łącko

  45. johninc says

    Any chance we will get an update to the Daytona Beach – Jacksonville, FL area soon? Imagery of my town (Palm Coast, Flagler County, FL) is over three years back. Flagler County boasted the greatest growth in the nation during this time and a lot of building changes have occurred here.

  46. Ian Hamer says

    Brighouse UK had excellent 18 month old imagery. We been downgraded to ancient 6 year old imagery, the only good news being that it shows the pre-Tesco era! We still have the old cricket pitch near the town centre……….WHY?

  47. Cully Pettigrew says

    Yes, Scotland again is the poor relation. Cloud covers most of Mull. The Garvellachs in the Firth of Lorne are covered in a mysterious Mars like mist. The North West coast has been updated with higher resolution but it is much worse than the surrounding low res which at least looks good when flying over the terrain.
    When will you dudes at Google realise that Scotland is not an appendage of England/ We really do exist although not quite as an independent nation just yet!

  48. Noel Ward says

    I see a lot of “British Isles” in your comments, did you know Ireland in NOT a British island



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.