Google Maps- visualizing the earth

Google Maps (for a time named Google Local) is a free web mapping (for non-commercial use) service application and technology provided by Google that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API. It offers street maps, a route planner for traveling by foot, bicycle, car, or public transport and an urban business locator for numerous countries around the world. It also can help find the location of businesses.

Google Maps uses the Mercator projection, so it cannot show areas around the poles. A related product is Google Earth, a stand-alone program for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, SymbianOS, and iPhone OS which offers more globe-viewing features, including showing polar areas.

Satellite view

Google Maps provides high-resolution satellite images for most urban areas in Canada, and the United States (including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) as well as parts of Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Chile, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and many other countries. Google Maps also covers many cities, including Istanbul, Moscow, and most of India and Pakistan.

Various governments have complained about the potential for terrorists to use the satellite images in planning attacks. Google has blurred some areas for security (mostly in the United States),^{[citation needed]} including the U.S. Naval Observatory area (where the official residence of the Vice President is located), and previously^{[citation needed]} the United States Capitol and the White House (which formerly featured this erased housetop). Other well-known government installations, including Area 51 in the Nevada desert, are visible. Not all areas on satellite images are covered in the same resolution. Places that are less populated are usually not covered in much detail as populated areas. In some areas, there are patches of clouds which make the map cluttered.

With the introduction of an easily pannable and searchable mapping and satellite imagery tool, Google's mapping engine prompted a surge of interest in satellite imagery. Sites were established which feature satellite images of interesting natural and man-made landmarks, including such novelties as "large type" writing visible in the imagery, as well as famous stadia and unique geological formations. As of November 2008^[update], the U.S. National Weather Service also now uses Google Maps within its local weather forecasts, showing the 5 times 5 km "point forecast" squares used in forecast models.

Although Google uses the word satellite, most of the high-resolution imagery is aerial photography taken from airplanes rather than from satellites.