In yesterday’s post we mentioned that Google has stopped producing imagery update maps for every update. It turns out we were wrong. Thank you to GEB reader Munden for letting us know that Google has released a map for an update on April 24th, 2015. You can view it in Google Earth using this KML file. Keep in mind that Google uses the same map for each update so in future you may see a more recent update than the one discussed in this post. There is no way that we know of of saving the map other than a screen shot.
Latest Google Earth Imagery map – April 24th, 2015. Larger version.
Do not assume that all the added imagery is recent. For example, there is a patch of aerial imagery in Spain that is dated 15th June 2013. For more on what the map is telling us, see this series of posts we wrote last month.
This update includes imagery of some of the Islands of Vanuatu captured soon after it was hit by Cyclone Pam in March.
Some buildings have lost their roofs.
If you wish to explore the area, be sure to check ‘historical imagery’ and also check outside the red outlines, as there are other relevant images of the cyclone damage from previous updates.
If you find anything interesting in the imagery, do let us know in the comments.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
I wonder why they changed the way it is presented. For years it ended up in Places and it could be added to a folder and kept. I suppose it’s still nice to be able to access it, but a screenshot is next to useless.
we had more frequent updates in 2014 and a kmz which we could load and compare with our placemarks. This year updates are not worth while to mention and the update announcing service is much reduced.
google act like a dealer. Get you clients with free stuff and then reduce service. Next is a sort of pay TV. Order updates by money…
Just another comment: I was just looking around at Niger airport.
In some – more or less – unimportent locations of the world you have a nearly “daily update” of images (one in a quarter would be sufficent) while at other places (for example the ports of the Russian North Fleet or Severodvonsk yards) wait 2 years or more for an update.
What sort of selection is this?
Ideas?
That I wonder -in some places the images are updated very often -but in some once in 2-3 years.
The crash site and surroundings of Germanwings flight 4U9525 was updated, too.
Hey Mr who ever in Google, can you update my small village far away here in borneo island around this pointv 02°51′38.7″N 111°52′42.3″E. . Would love to see my small village in high resolution.
I use GE mainly to look after military bases, naval bases, airfields,etc and noticed that military zones seem to be updated quite often…
i wonder why image on google earth pertaining to wular lake in jammu and kashmir state India is not being updated after september 2014. please let me know the reason and when it will be updated