Today we are releasing our map of Google Earth imagery updates for 2016. Download this KML file
to see it in Google Earth.
Let us know in the comments if you find any interesting sights that we have not yet covered.
Eastern Europe got noticeably more imagery than Western Europe. We guess this is because Western Europe mostly already has high quality aerial imagery. Most of the updated imagery in Western Europe is aerial imagery attributed to Google and we believe gathered by Google.
The Ukraine is an exception as it is still censored along with Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, none of which received new imagery in 2016.
The maps show the approximate locations of imagery updates from January to November 2016 classified by month. As far as we know there are no December images yet in ‘historical imagery’. The maps are created using the Google Earth API / plugin, which is set to be shut down a couple of days from now (January 11th, 2017).
There is some recent imagery in Google Earth that has not yet made it to ‘historical imagery’, which is not included in the maps. Also keep in mind that Google sometimes adds old imagery, so during the course of 2016 they would have added quite a lot of 2015 or older imagery which is not included in these maps and in the future they will add more 2016 imagery.
Imagery updates dated 2016, January to November
Speed up the animation by dragging the slider to the left to better see the seasonality of imagery, a topic we have discussed a few times in the past:
Preferred seasons for gathering imagery
2015 imagery updates animated
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.
Much of the imagery for Western Europe is woefully out of date – so I’d argue that it’s quality was high!
i cant see well now same before, what is the problem there?
Thanks for your effort, Timothy!
“Eastern Europe got noticeably more imagery than Western Europe” – that’s true – I’m waiting for years to see an update of Rosyth/Scotland to have the new Elizabeth class carrier on it đŸ™‚
Thanks …… Dear timothy
there are no December images yet in ‘historical imagery…? When December imagery will be updated..?
There are lot of area which are not updated in Pakistan,the imaginary data shows 2013. When will it be updated
Funny how ukraine is untouched by the updates.
Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq are censored, we believe by the US government.
Google earth is crap. Imagery is not updated for 1 year – 3 year. There are other sites,which offer updated imagery, although resolution is not good, but better than wasting time at google earth.
Is there a way to delte the thick yellow polygons? I unchecked every feature in Google Earth Pro and can’t find one that renders those yellow lines. There are differently colored lines, which I would like to delete as well, but the yellow ones obscure the ground views under them. Thanks.