Google Earth Blog

The amazing things about Google Earth


indonesia

Komodo Dragons in Street View

Google has just released Street View imagery of Komodo Island, Indonesia, as well as significantly increasing the coverage for the rest of Indonesia. There are also a number of new underwater Street View locations in the region, which you can read more about on Google’s Lat Long blog.


Red: New Street View. Blue: Previously existing Street View.

The blue outlines are not showing correctly in Google Earth, but the Street View is there if you know where to look. The blue does show when you zoom out almost to the point where the ‘yellow man’ disappears. To zoom in and out while holding the ‘yellow man’ above the map, use the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ keys on the keyboard. Because of this issue, the imagery is best explored with Google Maps.


Some Komodo dragons relaxing at the beach. View in Google Maps.


The Street View camera was accompanied by guides with sticks to keep the dragons at bay. View in Google Maps.


This Javan deer is apparently not native to the island. View in Google Maps.

New Street View imagery – Indonesia and Cambodia

We told you in April about Street View imagery in Cambodia around the temples of Angkor Wat. Now, Google have released imagery for much of the rest of Cambodia, as well as a significant amount in Indonesia, although the Indonesian imagery appears to be almost entirely on the islands of Java and Bali. Thanks to GEB reader IxBxTx for alerting us to the update.

According to this article Google set up a fleet of Street View cars in Indonesia, back in 2012. All the imagery I checked in both countries was dated some time in 2013, so maybe it has taken a while to process the imagery, or they had to wait for approval from local authorities. It apparently took 4 years to get approval in Greece which finally got Street View in June this year.

Street View Cambodia
Interesting transportation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Street View Indonesia
A scenic roundabout in Badung, Bali, Indonesia

Cambodia-Street-View-coverage
Street View coverage for Cambodia. Note that Thailand already had Street View.

Street-View-Indonesia-coverage
Street View coverage for Indonesia.

Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung in Google Earth

8,530-foot-high Mount Sinabung in western Indonesia has erupted again, prompting the evacuation of approximately 1,300 villagers.  The mountain has been active for a few months now: 15,000 were forced to evacuate in September and roughly 3,300 were forced to evacuate in October.

sinabung

To learn more about this and other volcanoes around the world, you can use the [Volcanoes] layer in Google Earth, found under the [Gallery] section.  To find Mount Sinabung, just load this KML file and it’ll fly you over there.

For more about volcanoes in Google Earth you can check out this post, or read more about this eruption of Mount Sinabung at ABC News.