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What Is Google’s Map Update Showing in N. Korea?

Jan. 29, 2013 11:03am Liz Klimas

Shortly after its executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s return from a “private humanitarian” mission to North Korea, Google has released an update to its Maps product in the country.

What is it showing? A detailed map with significantly more roads than have ever been so easily accessible on the Internet before.

In a blog post, Google’s Jayanth Mysore, a senior product manager for Google Map Maker, wrote that although North Korea has long been one of the largest areas that Google has had limited map data to, that is now changed.

Google Maps Updates North Koreas Road System

Google’s map for Pyongyang, North Korea before (left) and after (right) the update. (Images: Google Map)

“To build this map, a community of citizen cartographers came together in Google Map Maker to make their contributions such as adding road names and points of interest,” Mysore wrote. “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. As a result, the world can access maps of North Korea that offer much more information and detail than before.”

Granted, it is likely some of the roads were in existence for a long while, even if they weren’t officially recorded on Google Maps.

Mysore acknowledges that the crowd-sourced map isn’t perfect, which is expected from a country that doesn’t readily divulge much of its information. He puts out a call for more people to continue improving the accuracy of the maps with information they might have.

What’s the point of it all?

“Creating maps is a crucial first step towards helping people access more information about parts of the world that are unfamiliar to them,” Mysore wrote. “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.”

Recently, another Google product — Google Earth — was being hailed for its increased use in revealing North Korean prison camps. Although Pyongyang has maintained that no such camps exist, those scouring information pulled in from Google Earth satellites show otherwise. In fact, one such blogger might have found a new camp all together.

Curtis Melvin, who maintains the blog North Korean Economy Watch, wrote Google’s recent data update to its Earth product shows an area bearing similar characteristics to other camps. This potential camp would have been built between December 2006 and September 2011.

“It is surrounded by a very visible security perimeter,” Melvin wrote. “It is also placed right next to Camp 14– even sharing 3kms of border.”

Images from Google Earth satellites might reveal a new kwan-li-so (or prison camp). (Image: Curtis Melvin/Google Earth)

Melvin wrote that he didn’t want to jump to conclusions about the site being that of a prison camp, but the blog One Free Korea picked up on the images he found and agreed with some indications of it being a camp.

One Free Korea thought some of the characteristics — its perimeter and lack of direct roads — might suggest its use as a prison camp. The blogger does acknowledge that it could be a military compound or temporary detention center.

Either way, it’s “a good part of North Korea to hide people,” One Free Korea wrote.

A report by Reuters this month had bloggers and human rights activists saying Google Earth — and perhaps now Google Maps — shed light on some of the once secretive parts of North Korea.

“Satellite imagery readily available through Google Earth has certainly enabled human rights experts to decisively confirm that these facilities do exist, despite the fact that the North Korean regime denies their existence,” Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Greg Scarlatoiu said to Reuters earlier this month.

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Comments (22)

stewqq
Posted on April 18, 2013 at 9:18pm
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sgtstubbs
Posted on February 20, 2013 at 7:39pm
Fact is it does not matter if the person is of color or tall or knocked up, you look for the threat and respond as such. Taking cover is the first option it gives you time to see what is really happening. SNAP shooting is never good, for it might just be a SBC….Suicide by cop and does happens more often than you think. Anyone with a gun might just lay it down and not point it,

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GuruMeditation
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 7:24am
If I need google maps to tell where I am going in North Korea, something is badly wrong.

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- digijock
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 9:44pm
  Hahaha — yes badly wrong, indeed! ;-) #81000005
  
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Southernsoul
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 6:33pm
Its good to know we are running out of problems and have to fill this site with stories about squirrels, penguins, and new roads in North Korea. I’d hate to be lost in North Korea and not have a google map drawn from memory.

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hades3
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 4:16pm
Aaaaaaah ! A look into the perfect future Obama has for America. The perfect Utopian paradise !

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jman-6
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 1:00pm
My fellow Patriots I must admit that we should be ashamed of ourselves for not demanding our Troops/Govt. liberate these poor people and re-unify the Korean peninsula! Holocost Remembrance Day just passed and we promised after WW2 to never again allow this to happen yet we sit idlely by as our NorK brothers n sisters in Christ suffer torture n death in ‘concentration camps’! GOD will not hold us blameless as we have blood soaked hands for doing nothing! I encourage everyone to speak up n out concerning this travisty of justice! GOD BLESS

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- RDavis49
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 2:49pm
  Politicians……………. the blame for all that is today concerning N. Korea falls squarily on the shoulders of the POLITICIANS…. Our military and the S. Korean military and other alies were set to finish the job in the ’50s and take N. Korea, but the Politicians (as usual) stopped them and established the DMZ and we’ve been throwing insults, bullets back and forth and killing each others soldiers ever since. There are things that go on in Korea that the American has little or no knowledge of because it’s so politically hushed up. When I was there in the 1970′s, news about the killing of the 4 American Army Communications soldiers on the DMZ was not even announced in the States until 3 to 4 weeks later. Korea is a quagmire for the United States, a black hole in which we’ve tried for decades to fill with money, equipment and men. It’s time to get the hell out and let the S. Koreans handle their own security. Not saying abandon them, we will stand ready to move back in and help them defend at a moments notice. But, they have to take responsibility for their own security and own equipment after all this time. Bring our militray personnel and equipment home…
  
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- @leftfighter
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 3:31pm
  Bad idea. The projection of power has gotten us into more messes in recent times than it has solved.
  
  What you’re proposing is tantamount to any of the Cuba liberation operations of the early sixties. You remember how those ended?
  
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SamIamTwo
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:55am
IIRC they have massive empty villages recently built in China…anyone want to guess who will be occupying them? Not far fetched knowing who our leader is…Oh it was just a massive mistake.

Wonder if NK was commissioned to build some vacant cities…It takes a village to raise an idiot. Moo along now, moo along.

Oh and google earth has NK in 3d…in part.

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Shasta
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:51am
Stop with the article titles that sounds like riddles already! It’s time for the Blaze to grow up.

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ILUVPORK
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:43am
It shows people starving and cannalbilism.But they at least would pass the new weight requirement guidelines in America.

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term limits for congress
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:42am
I heard a rumor that North Koreans are not allowed to have guns. It must be a non-violent paradise there.

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Gonzo
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:33am
I doubt North Koreans need road maps. It’s hard to walk far enough from home to get lost when you’re starving to death.

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SamIamTwo
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:16am
Ah they have imbedded pics too.

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:16am
And recently Google leaders went to meet with the leaders of North Korea and then these show up? I wonder what else is going on?

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Outlaw_Josey_Wales
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:15am
North Korea is building FEMA camps.

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Supah_Patriot
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:10am
What is the probability that The Blaze will use a question mark in its next headline?

Hint: It’s greater than you think!

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- Cavallo
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:46am
  I’ll give you this one: You called it.
  
  “Simply Amazing Photos of WWI That You May Have Not Seen Before (Bonus: Is That C.S. Lewis?)”
  
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- 13th Imam
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:48am
  ????????????????????What??????????????????????difference??????????????????????does????????????????????????????It????????????????????????Make????????????????????????????????
  
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Cavallo
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:06am
Obama is taking notes from his brother in arms Kim Jong Un.

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- Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:17am
  Understand too – the matter is with these detailed of maps, N Korea can return the favor and use the ones of United States territories for their missiles to be aimed at in the near future.
  
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