Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG)’s endeavours to map North Korea are proving difficult for the company but it is receiving some unexpected help from a community of keen citizen cartographers.
North Korea is a secretive country, where few people have access to the Internet, while foreign visitors are escorted wherever they go.
Google is, of course, not allowed anywhere with its Street View cars and labelling points of interest and roads is not easy for the company.
Working with Google Map Maker, a feature which allows anyone with an interest in cartography to add to and update maps of familiar places, a group of enthusiasts has been busy adding data to maps of North Korea. However, the company didn’t say exactly who updated the maps, or where the mappers are located, Digital Trends reported.
“This effort has been active in Map Maker for a few years and today the new map of North Korea is ready and now available on Google Maps,” Jayanth Mysore, senior product manager of Google Map Maker, wrote in a blog post.
He added, “While many people around the globe are fascinated with North Korea, these maps are especially important for the citizens of South Korea who have ancestral connections or still have family living there.”
Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt had visited North Korea a couple of weeks ago on a surprise visit. It was reported to be a humanitarian mission.
He had appealed to the country’s leaders to give the people its freedom to use the Internet or continue to face problems.
“As the world is becoming increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” he said at the time.