Google Earth Blog

The amazing things about Google Earth


canada

Google Maps Indigenous Territories in Canada and Brazil

Google has recently announced that they have added Indigenous Territories for both Canada and Brazil to their mapping products. Read more about it on the Google Blog (Canada, Brazil).

Although the names of indigenous territories can be found in search in both Google Maps and Google Earth, the outlines only show in Google Maps. Even the web version of Google Earth, which largely shares the same database as Google Maps, does not show the outlines. Another issue is that even in Google Maps, there is no way to view all the outlines at once. It would be nice if Google were to add them to Google Earth either as second level admin regions, or a layer on their own.

When looking at Brazil in Google Earth, it is immediately apparent that some areas are not being cleared for cultivation. These are a mix of indigenous territories and protected regions (nature preserves of various kinds).

The indigenous territories are not completely free of visible human activity. The indigenous territory of Kayapó, for example includes a town, a road to the town, some signs of clearing presumably for cultivation and an area that appears to be surface gold mining.

New Street View, Madagascar and Canadian Parks

Google has released new Street View imagery for a few locations in Madagascar and some Canadian National Parks. Read more about it on the Google Lat Long blog: Madagascar, Canada.

The Google Street view cameras enjoyed rides on Madagascan canoes, sometimes under the power of an outboard motor and sometimes under wind power.


Can you tell which is Canada and which is Madagascar?

As you can see below, the actual area covered with new Street View imagery hardly makes a difference to the global Street View map. However, with a high quality 360 degree panorama every few metres it is still a lot of imagery.


Street View changes (in red) between March 12th, 2015 and May 7th, 2015. Be sure to check the larger version here.

If you are curious as to how we created the above map, we used this html file, which uses the Google Maps API to show the Street View coverage of the world. We then used a Chrome extension called ‘Full Page Screen Capture’ to capture a screen shot of it. We took another screen shot at a later date and used a graphics editor to compare the two and mark the differences in red. It doesn’t just find new Street View, but also finds changes to Google Maps at that zoom level. For example, some cities in China appear to have gained prominence, there have been some changes to the coastline of Greenland and Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan got a bit bigger. There are also minor changes to coastlines and country borders all over the world.

Using Google Earth to track environmental impact

We have discussed the amazing work that Google Earth Outreach does quite a few times on here, and they continue to assist with amazing projects around the world.

They recently released a video that showcases some of the work that they’ve done with nonprofit organizations in Canada. Check it out:

The organizations involved in this include:

  • “Caribou Migration,” by Golder Associates Ltd & Hugh Stimson
  • “I Am Fish,” by the David Suzuki Foundation
  • “Canada’s Boreal, the World’s Largest Intact Forest,” by Pew Environment Group
  • “Voices on the Land,” by Okanagan Nation Alliance, Gregory Kehm Associates & Ecotrust Canada
  • “Oil & Water Map,” by the Living Oceans Society
  • “Natural Capital,” by the David Suzuki Foundation

For more, check out the official Google Earth Outreach website.

(via +Google for Nonprofits)