Google maps, the most overlooked tool in history

[Chestrockwell]

I am obsessed with google maps and I don't think anybody appreciates that you can be in your flat in Surrey on your laptop and find yourself looking at small villages in Chad in satellite view.

I have become obsessed with it and feel like I can travel the world while being at home, I can roam through the streets of St. Petersburg or Hokkaido without leaving my home

After travelling the world from my laptop, I have one question....why is most of Africa a desolate wasteland

If you look on google maps and zoom into every country there, apart from Ghana, Nigeria, some countries on the west coast and south Africa, it is an unpopulated wasteland.

Why? If uninhabitable was the reason, why is Baghdad, Riyadh and Alice Springs Australia populated

I don't mean to sound ignorant, maybe I am but you have this giant continent that has all these resources and the nations have nothing to show for it. I understand colonisation has a part to play however look at the middle east, look at China...what is the missing link.

The reason I ask is because I would zoom in on these small villages without any paved roads and feel sympathy towards them, we don't ask to be born, we especially don't get to choose where we are born. Imagine being born into a life of poverty by the equator with no real future

[croyde]

https://youtube.com/shorts/M0LUdqFJEPI?si=waHw5Gbv...

[Hill92]

If you haven't already, check out Google Earth as well - https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/earth/about/vers...

As for your question, the Mercator projection used by Google Maps doesn't really capture just how large Africa is. Have a look at https://thetruesize.com/ which allows you to overlay countries and regions on other parts of the world to see just how they large they are relative to each other in reality.

Like many cities, Baghdad owes its position to the Tigiris river. Not just for irrigating agriculture but also as a many transportation route. Similarly, Riyadh and Alice Springs owe their existence to springs and oases. Their growth into larger settlements is a relatively recent development borne out of resource booms (mining, oil) and the need to support new communication routes (telegraphs, railways).

[GravelBen]

It's also fun finding military bases on google maps/earth and seeing if you can spot anything interesting...

Like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@69.0461649,33.4090111...

I looked at Russia first as I figured they are less likely to have a cosy agreement with google to blur things out, but then tried the USA as well... a couple of aircraft carriers moored at Norfolk here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9553006,-76.329283...


Funny thinking about the secretive recon and spy work that would have been needed in earlier decades for governments to locate things in other countries that are now visibile to any old member of the public on satellite photos (and yes I know there will be plenty of other stuff hidden away out of sight). Can only imagine the extra detail seen by military satellites.

Edited by GravelBen on Tuesday 10th February 04:10

[Time4another]

Like the timeline features for seeing places you have been.

Also use it for marking/storing our global customer locations.

[markymarkthree]

I always use Goggle earth, street view when booking a holiday and when looking for a hotel/villa/cottage in an interesting spot.

[Alex Z]

Google Earth is one of the things that still feels most like the future to me.

I love watching a film or TV show and using it to figure out filming locations and exact camera angles.

[WH16]

Bing maps has better imagery generally, but Google street view is much more prevalent than the Microsoft equivalent.

Google Earth in VR is great too, and regular Google Earth has a lot of older imagery, some even dating back to WWII, it is fascinating to see how towns have changed and conurbations have grown over time.

I spend a lot of time on maps and like the OP enjoy a bit of global snooping on those little snapshots in time of other peoples worlds.

Wait until you find out about OSINT and 'live' satellite imagery...

[vikingaero]

If I'm visiting an area, I use Google Maps to check out every nook and cranny of the area. Many of the roads in Cornwall that lead straight down to the coast lead to lovely tiny beaches and coves. People take photos and tag it as a photo/viewpoint and checking those out means you can see lovely places people rarely visit.

[shed driver]

I work in the funeral industry and it's invaluable for planning routes, looking for access to turn several vehicles around in narrow streets etc. Also picturing venue car parks etc when dropping families off for the wake. Is there enough room for several long wheelbase vehicles to park close to the entrance and safely exit the car park without having to reverse onto main roads.

MARIO is also invaluable.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e44a8cb4f...

SD

[croyde]

I use it to check parking restrictions as well as for a walkabout when seeing a property on Rightmove.

Always a lovely pic of the house only to find on Street view that the area is pretty ropey or the house is actually on a dual carriageway.

Quite often the agent hasn't given the exact address so a bit of detective work is needed to match the roof, garden etc to the satellite view.

Like I'm examining the photos brought back from a WW2 bombing raid

One place I liked the look of took an hour or so to track down. It was half a mile from where the agent had marked it on the map, backing on to the M40.

[Zetec-S]

croyde said:

I use it to check parking restrictions as well as for a walkabout when seeing a property on Rightmove.

Always a lovely pic of the house only to find on Street view that the area is pretty ropey or the house is actually on a dual carriageway.

Quite often the agent hasn't given the exact address so a bit of detective work is needed to match the roof, garden etc to the satellite view.

Like I'm examining the photos brought back from a WW2 bombing raid

One place I liked the look of took an hour or so to track down. It was half a mile from where the agent had marked it on the map, backing on to the M40.

100% this

[snuffy]

Google Maps/Street View/Earth are amazing tools.

I can spend hours "walking" around somewhere, and it's even better now you can go back in time and see how a location has changed. I love that.

Timeline is also amazing, but it's now very annoying that you can only use it on the tracking device (yes, I know you can download the data and use it on a PC, but it's crap since you never used to be able to do that). Plus, the reasons Google gave are clearly untrue.

If I'm going somewhere new, I use it to look up the way, and, more importantly, where to park. Especially useful if selecting a hotel to see what it's car park is like (using a combination of StreetView and satellite view).

It's a thing of wonder !

But, I can't see how the OP has managed to conclude that it's "the most overlooked tool in history" - it's everywhere.

[GravelBen]

If you want to go hiking in NZ but it's not convenient, never fear!

Some sucker for punishment has carried a streetview camera through the Milford and Routeburn tracks, among others...

https://www.google.com/maps/@-44.7979662,167.73310...

[//j17]

Chestrockwell said:

Why? If uninhabitable was the reason, why is Baghdad, Riyadh and Alice Springs Australia populated

1. Because there's been a settlement there for about 2600 years and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. It also sits on a major river, meaning both water and trade. All in all much the same reasons London exists where it does.

2. Oil.

3. Gold.

[Jader1973]

//j17 said:

Chestrockwell said:

Why? If uninhabitable was the reason, why is Baghdad, Riyadh and Alice Springs Australia populated

1. Because there's been a settlement there for about 2600 years and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. It also sits on a major river, meaning both water and trade. All in all much the same reasons London exists where it does.

2. Oil.

3. Gold.

3. Not really. It was originally settled as a repeater station for the telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin (and on to the UK). Then they found gold.

[StevieBee]

Chestrockwell said:

why is most of Africa a desolate wasteland

Why? If uninhabitable was the reason, why is Baghdad, Riyadh and Alice Springs Australia populated

I don't mean to sound ignorant, maybe I am but you have this giant continent that has all these resources and the nations have nothing to show for it. I understand colonisation has a part to play however look at the middle east, look at China...what is the missing link.

The reason I ask is because I would zoom in on these small villages without any paved roads and feel sympathy towards them, we don't ask to be born, we especially don't get to choose where we are born. Imagine being born into a life of poverty by the equator with no real future

Humanity amassed close to where the resources necessary for life were reasonably easily obtained. Over the past 200 years or so, technology and industry have enabled those resources to be transported and thus accessible further and further away from their source. However, there comes a point where the cost and/or practical barriers deem it impossible to reach.

The vast majority of the African landmass is of no (direct) use to people. There are no mineral resources, no freshwater, food production is near impossible and thus no industry to employ people. This is why Africa is a continent of cities more than of nations. This is because it's cities where the resources are that are needed to support a society. This causes its own problem with overcrowding.

You mentioned Riyadh. You could also look at Jeddah. But for the same reasons as Africa, over 90% of Saudi Arabia is un populated. It even has an entire region called Rub' al Khali (the "Empty Quarter") as there is literally nobody there.

Another factor is the sea. 40% of the world's population live within 60 miles of a coastline. The sea provides food and also enables trade.

If you look at somewhere like India, you have a country that is abundant in natural resources almost everywhere which is why the population there is more dispersed across the entire country (though still concentrated around cities).

As to why large parts of Africa and other places in the 'Global South' are poor compared to elsewhere, that's a can or worms that's probably best left to its own thread. But in a very simplistic nutshell: Europe benefited from an abundance of materials that man learnt how to utilise to better their lives. Trees were felled, the wood used to make things. This lead to the idea of organised labour, assisted with an abundance of beasts of burden. This lead to innovation (working out how to make more stuff) and exploration (finding new resources elsewhere, like in Africa). Africa lacked the things necessary to enable them to follow a similar path. Their resources were limited to single things or materials and on their own, of little use. So whilst Europe evolved into complex, advanced societies, Africa remained a wilderness, primitive (comparatively) with society defined by tribal affiliation. This only began to change in the last 100 years or so. In short, Africa's disadvantage is its geography.

[NDA]

snuffy said:

If I'm going somewhere new, I use it to look up the way, and, more importantly, where to park. Especially useful if selecting a hotel to see what it's car park is like (using a combination of StreetView and satellite view).

Snap!

My summer tours of France are planned with StreetView as a major tool. Secure parking, nice looking restaurants, villages with large car parks....

I am also one of those people that is still a little bit amazed with SatNav too! I have driven thousands of miles in Europe using a paper map and now I think 'how did we manage?'. These days we don't even consider/look at the route most of the time - I plug in some obscure chateau in France in the middle of nowhere and just drive there.

[Peterpetrole]

StevieBee said:

Chestrockwell said:

why is most of Africa a desolate wasteland

Why? If uninhabitable was the reason, why is Baghdad, Riyadh and Alice Springs Australia populated

I don't mean to sound ignorant, maybe I am but you have this giant continent that has all these resources and the nations have nothing to show for it. I understand colonisation has a part to play however look at the middle east, look at China...what is the missing link.

The reason I ask is because I would zoom in on these small villages without any paved roads and feel sympathy towards them, we don't ask to be born, we especially don't get to choose where we are born. Imagine being born into a life of poverty by the equator with no real future

Humanity amassed close to where the resources necessary for life were reasonably easily obtained. Over the past 200 years or so, technology and industry have enabled those resources to be transported and thus accessible further and further away from their source. However, there comes a point where the cost and/or practical barriers deem it impossible to reach.

The vast majority of the African landmass is of no (direct) use to people. There are no mineral resources, no freshwater, food production is near impossible and thus no industry to employ people. This is why Africa is a continent of cities more than of nations. This is because it's cities where the resources are that are needed to support a society. This causes its own problem with overcrowding.

You mentioned Riyadh. You could also look at Jeddah. But for the same reasons as Africa, over 90% of Saudi Arabia is un populated. It even has an entire region called Rub' al Khali (the "Empty Quarter") as there is literally nobody there.

Another factor is the sea. 40% of the world's population live within 60 miles of a coastline. The sea provides food and also enables trade.

If you look at somewhere like India, you have a country that is abundant in natural resources almost everywhere which is why the population there is more dispersed across the entire country (though still concentrated around cities).

As to why large parts of Africa and other places in the 'Global South' are poor compared to elsewhere, that's a can or worms that's probably best left to its own thread. But in a very simplistic nutshell: Europe benefited from an abundance of materials that man learnt how to utilise to better their lives. Trees were felled, the wood used to make things. This lead to the idea of organised labour, assisted with an abundance of beasts of burden. This lead to innovation (working out how to make more stuff) and exploration (finding new resources elsewhere, like in Africa). Africa lacked the things necessary to enable them to follow a similar path. Their resources were limited to single things or materials and on their own, of little use. So whilst Europe evolved into complex, advanced societies, Africa remained a wilderness, primitive (comparatively) with society defined by tribal affiliation. This only began to change in the last 100 years or so. In short, Africa's disadvantage is its geography.

The best recent book on this is this one, brilliant explanations in answer to the OP:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-Earth-Shaped-Huma...

[otolith]

StevieBee said:

As to why large parts of Africa and other places in the 'Global South' are poor compared to elsewhere, that's a can or worms that's probably best left to its own thread. But in a very simplistic nutshell: Europe benefited from an abundance of materials that man learnt how to utilise to better their lives. Trees were felled, the wood used to make things. This lead to the idea of organised labour, assisted with an abundance of beasts of burden. This lead to innovation (working out how to make more stuff) and exploration (finding new resources elsewhere, like in Africa). Africa lacked the things necessary to enable them to follow a similar path. Their resources were limited to single things or materials and on their own, of little use. So whilst Europe evolved into complex, advanced societies, Africa remained a wilderness, primitive (comparatively) with society defined by tribal affiliation. This only began to change in the last 100 years or so. In short, Africa's disadvantage is its geography.

But there were complex and advanced civilisations that rose and fell in Africa - which that narrative of European supremacy ignores.