Google Maps Satellite Views of Chernobyl

Contando Estrelas: Chernobyl 25 Years Later

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. Google Maps' satellite view gives us a great insight into the devastation of this once thriving area.

Italian website Contando Estrelas has written an informative article on the destruction of the area around the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, which it has illustrated with satellite views from Google Maps.

The article shows images of the power plant itself, the now ghost town of Pripyat (including a Ferris wheel that had been constructed for the May 1st celebrations), abandoned ships in a port to the north of Chernobyl and a graveyard of trucks, tanks, helicopters and other vehicles used after the explosion of 1986 (all of which had to be abandoned because of their exposure to high radiation levels).

The article is in Spanish.

Panoramas & Vistas on Google Maps

Generate a Panorama

'Generate a Panorama' lets you click on a Google Map and see a representation of the view from that location.

For example, below is the generated view from the summit of Mont Blanc looking due west. As you can see all the peaks in your view are marked on the created panorama.



To generate your own view you just need to click on the map. You can drag a polyline to choose the direction you wish to view and you can also adjust the span of the view.

Also See

Hey What's That - The original and first Google Maps based panorama generator. 

More Sweden on Google Maps

Mere Sverige

Mere Sverige (More Sweden) is a tourism promotion site for Sweden aimed at the Danish market. The site is therefore in Danish. More Sweden uses Google Maps to provide Danish visitors to Sweden with all the accommodation and sightseeing information that they will need.

The map includes some very nice features. In particular the numbered marker clustering solution is well thought out. Numbered markers show the number of points of information at a location. If you mouse-over the marker a small information window opens with preview thumbnails of the individual locations. If you click on the marker the map zooms in so that you can view the individual markers.

Markers on the map are divided into the categories of 'experiences, 'accommodation' and 'transport' and each of these categories is further subdivided. For example 'accommodation' contains sub-categories of hotels, B&B's etc. 

Find Foursquare Deals on Google Maps

Checkin Mania: Check-in Deals

Check-in Deals lets you find all the local businesses offering deals through Foursquare. All you have to do is type in your location and you can view all your nearby deals on a Google Map.

As well as being displayed on the map all the deals are listed in the map sidebar. You can filter the displayed deals by 'Newbie Special', 'Check-in Special', 'Mayor Special' etc. If you click on the sidebar listing the location of the selected venue is displayed on the map

Zombies Attack the Royal Wedding

The Royal Zombie Wedding

There is a Royal Wedding taking place this Friday in London.

As you can imagine the burning question on everyone's lips is:

Can the wedding survive a zombie attack?

Thanks to the makers of Class 3 Outbreak, the Google Maps zombie game, we can now simulate the effects of a zombie attack on Westminster Abbey during the royal wedding and discover the answer to this important question.

After extensive testing of the simulator I can attest that things don't bode well for William and Kate. By my reckoning the happy couple will enjoy about five minutes of married life before joining the leagues of the walking dead.

On a more happy note a zombie attack won't make much difference to the royal family. It has been rumoured that the Queen's husband Prince Philip has been zombified for the last twenty years with very little noticeable effect on his ability to perform his royal duties.


As a reward for their work on the The Royal Zombie Wedding game creatorsBinary Space have been awarded a permanent room in the Tower of London by the UK government.

The Royal Wedding on Google Maps

Royal Wedding Tweets Map

Judging by the number of Tweets with the hashtag #royalwedding I'm guessing that some kind of wedding is coming up. Mibazaar has also picked up on this strange trend and has created a Google Map to show all the latest royal wedding chatter on Twitter.

The map displays the latest tweets with the #royalwedding hashtag that have been posted from in and around London. The map animates to show the latest Tweets, so it is possible to just sit back and read how people are reacting to this wedding.

The map is already showing a huge amount of activity. I hope it can cope with the amount of Twitter messages that will be flying around on Friday 21st.

How to Calculate the Cost of a Car Journey

MyPetrolPlace.com

This new Google Maps based application allows you to work out the cost for your car or motorbike journey in India based on the current cost of petrol in your city.

To use MyPetrolPlace.com enter a starting point and a destination. Then add the number of kilometres per kilogram your vehicle normally achieves. The application then calculates your daily and monthly fuel expenditure.

Your journey is also displayed on a Google Map. You can change the displayed route by dragging the markers. All the metro cities and state capitals in India are supported by the application.

The Bourne Identity on Google Maps

Psyked: Experiments with HTML5 Geolocation

Your real name is Jason Bourne and at this very moment CIA spy satellites are honing in on your location in an attempt to track you down ...

James Ford has been experimenting with geolocation in HTML5. The result is this rather scary Google Map with an unmanned aerial vehicle type of interface.

The map detects your location (in my case with amazing precision) and then proceeds to load a lot of information about your location. For my UK address the information included the road I live in and my postcode.

I really think it is time that we found out a little more about these Treadstone guys ...

US Citizens Living Near Nuclear Plants

Zeit-Online: American Nuclear Power Plants Map

German newspaper Zeit-Online has created a Google Maps application that shows how many Americans live near nuclear power plants.

The map includes a distance slider tool that lets you visualise how many people live within different distances of a nuclear power plant. For example, the voluntary evacuation zone around the Fukushima power plant is currently 18 miles. Using the Zeit-Online map we find that a total of 16,040,474 Americans live within 18 miles of a nuclear plant.

You can use the slider to adjust the radius around the nuclear power plants. The number of people living within the radius is then shown. Clicking on a power plant on the map brings up more information about the location in the map sidebar.

New 45° Imagery on Google Maps

Google have added new 45° imagery on Google Maps for Rome.



New bird's eye views have also been added in:

St Louis, MO
Honolulu, HI
New Orleans, LA
Rome, Italy
North Austin, TX
West Norfolk, VA
Scottsdale, AZ
San Rafael, CA
Palm Springs, CA
Lake Forest, CA
Boulder City, NV

Aerial View Map 

I've updated my Aerial View map to include some of the amazing sights around Rome captured in Google's new 45° imagery. The map also includes some pretty stunning imagery from Venice, the USA and South Africa.

A New Styled Map Wizard for Google Maps

Google Maps Colorizr

The Styled Maps feature, released in the Google Maps API last year, has proved really popular. It allows map designers to alter the look of Google Maps to match the design of their websites or to emphasise particular map features.

Google's Styled Map Wizard is a great tool for experimenting with and perfecting a style for your Google Map. However the Styled Map function and the Map Wizard both use HSL colors rather than HEX RGB colors, which may be confusing to some users.

The advertising agency stadt.werk has created a new wizard that lets you design your map style in the more familiar HEX RGB colors. The Google Map Colorizr conveniently transfers your HEX RGB colors to the HSL colors used by Google Maps and allows you to cut and paste the code of your finished map style.

The Google Map Colorizr even has a dynamic URL. So if you want to ask someone's opinion about a particluar map style you can send them a link.

American Civil War on Google Maps

The American Civil War Timeline Project

The American Civil War Timeline Project is an interesting attempt to chronologically and geographically map the events of the American Civil War using the open source Simile Timeline. The map includes Wiki style editing so registered users can add geographic/chronological data points to the project.

The site also has two other historical time-line maps:

The World War Two Timeline Project
The Napoleonic Wars Timeline Project

With all three maps, historical events are added to the map when you use the time-line interface above the map.

Find a Parking Spot with Google Maps

Parking in Motion

Parking In Motion’s free iPhone app lets you find, reserve, and pay for parking spots across the US, Canada and Europe and also gives the driver occupancy information in certain locations in real time.

The app has coverage of the US, Canada and Europe with over 20,000 public parking lots enhanced with rates, hours, entrance points, and occupancy information. Using the app it is possible to view on a Google Map all the parking facilities for a location.

Markers on the map show the current occupancy rates at the different parking facilities shown. If you click on a marker you can view details about prices, the opening hours and its phone number.

The app is currently available for the iPhone and Android and Blackberry apps are also in the pipeline. 

California School Funding on Google Maps

California School District Funding

This Google Map shows school district funding in California. Using the map it is possible to view funding levels in each district and also view the school district's academic performance.

If you click on a school district you can view details of the funding over the last three years together with a projection of the funding next year assuming there is no tax extension in California.

The map also displays State Senate districts. If you click on a Senate district you can view the name and party affiliation of the district Senator and their winning margin.

U.S. Cultural Landmarks on Google Maps

CultureNow

This Google Map is mapping the locations of history, art and architecture in the public realm. The project was started in New York, and has mapped a huge number of cultural locations in the city, but now also shows cultural landmarks across the USA.

It is possible to search the map by category (and there are a lot of them). So, for example, it is possible to refine a search for art galleries, museums or historic buildings etc. If you click on a map marker you can get more information about the listing.

Each listing also includes a list of other nearby cultural locations.

Mapping Nuclear Plants & Earthquake Data

The World's Nuclear Power Reactors

This German Google Map shows the locations of the world's nuclear power plants. It also shows the locations of all the power plants currently under construction, those that are suspended and those that have been shut down.

The map shows that Japan currently has plans to build another nuclear plant on its east coast at Ōma. I wonder if it will ever be completed.

The map also contains two layers that let you view world earthquake data (with a magnitude of 5 or greater) for the last twenty years.

Nuclear Power Plants and Earthquakes Map

I've always wondered about the advisability of building nuclear power plants on top of fault lines. This Google Map shows global earthquake activity since 1973 and the locations of nuclear power plants around the world.

The map displays a heat map of 75,000 4.5+ magnitude earthquakes since 1973 based on data from the United States Geological Survey. I'm no expert but the map does make me question even more the advisability of building nuclear power stations in places such as Japan and California.

Where's This Picture From on Google Maps

Where the F##k is This?

This imaginatively named website allows you to ask the crowd where a photograph was taken.

If you have a picture and you are unsure of the location depicted you can upload it to Where the F##k is This and, if you are lucky, someone will know and show you its location on a Google Map.

Each picture is displayed with a Google Map. If you know the location depicted you can click on a Google Map to show the exact location and leave a comment.

The website includes a What's Hot section and a section for pictures that have already been located.

What's Going On with Google Maps

Map Channels Events

MLB All Star Game - Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Map Channels Events is a Google Maps based music and sporting events website with tens of thousands of events displayed at thousands of venues around the world. Using the website's interactive event calendar and Google Maps it is possible to find and buy tickets for all kinds of sporting, musical and theatrical events.

Map Channels Events has just added interactive floor-plan maps, supplied by Seatics, for many of its listed venues. The floor-plan maps allow customers to quickly compare prices in different sections of a stadium and see what kind of seating they are buying.

As well as the interactive floor-plans Map Channels Events includes a Google Map and Street View for each listed venue.

2012 Olympics on Google Maps

London Olympics Site

Today it has been gloriously sunny in London, so this afternoon I decided to take a stroll to the site of the 2012 London Olympics. I had my phone with me so I took a few photographs on my walk.

After uploading the photos to Picassa obviously the first thing that I thought of was to create a Google Map. There is nothing overly exciting about this map but I thought there might be some interest in having a look at the site of next year's London Olympics.

The satellite imagery on Google Maps for the Olympics Park was updated last month - so that's another reason to have looksie.

Historical UK Maps API

National Library of Scotland Maps API

The National Library of Scotland has released an API to give developers access to a map of the UK using out of copyright Ordnance Survey maps, dating from the 1920s to the 1940s.

The API uses Google Maps to create an interactive map based on tiles created from the Ordnance Survey Maps. You can see the basic map here. This map can be embedded into other websites and blogs just by copying and pasting the iframe code. You can even embed a map using a dynamic URL so that the embedded map is zoomed and centred on your chosen location.

However you can also use the API to create your own mashups. For examplehere is a map that has an added transparency slider, that allows you to view the Google Map tiles beneath the OS maps. 

Americas Rock on Twitter

Twitter Top 100 Users

This Google Map of the Top 100 Twitter users (based on the number of followers) reveals that only 7 of them live outside of the Americas. Those 7, who are all based in Europe, even include Brazilian footballer Kaka and U.S. tennis player Serena Williams.

The markers on the map are colour-coded by category, for example, music, entertainment, technology etc. Like BatchGeo's Map of Top 100 Websites Worldwide the map features a really cool marker clustering system. Not only does each clustered marker show the number of markers at the location it features a nice pie chart that represents the percentage of each website category at the location.

Keep on Running with Google Maps

iFit 

With the iFit you can now run anywhere in the world, virtually, with a little help from Google Maps and Street View.

You can connect iFit Live to an iFit treadmill or exercise bike. You then have the power of Google Maps to create a route anywhere that you fancy running. When you run on your iFit treadmill you can then follow your progress on your route with Google Maps and with Street View, where available.

You can get a good idea of what the experience is like by visiting the iFit demo page. With this demo feature you can draw and view workout maps. You can plan a route and even follow it in Street View.