Internet Cartographers, Not Terrorists, Use Google Maps to Hit British Landmarks
Being sticklers for detail, the British are crying foul that internet cartographers are making unmarked ruins of UK historical sites that landmarks such as Stonehenge have taken direct hits from internet and satellite navigation systems.
Their beefs is that they cannot be found on online maps.
Apart from the fact, as stated by Mary Spence, president of the British Cartographic Society, that online maps missed out on important or key points of interest such as centuries old cathedrals, royal castles and other stately homes, they were also effectively diminishing from national consciousness the British sense of nationhood.
You see, monuments that describe the British pride like Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometers west of Amesbury and 13 kilometers north of Salisbury, should be found on any serious map. But it is not referenced on Google Map for instance.
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Addressing the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference in London, Spence remarked: “Corporate cartographers are demolishing thousands of years of history — not to mention Britain’s remarkable geography — at a stroke by not including them on maps which millions of us use every day.”
Stonehenge, which draws more than 850,000 tourists a year, is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists believe that the iconic stone monument, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was erected around 2500 BC.
No, not terrorists this time. According to a story in the Daily Telegraph quoting British Army intelligence sources, insurgents were using the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint British bases in Basra, Iraq for terrorist attacks. The problem was, even two-man tents let alone a weather beaten castle belonging to some peer in Devon could be well pinpointed from an aerial Google Earth map!
Cartographers, seemingly, are hitting too much of UK landmarks and this should be a cause for worry. For that, the British are creating their own mapping projects as a fight back against Google’s and MultiMap’s “corporate blankwash”, as Spence charged.
Ed Parsons, a geospatial technologist at Google, was quick to offer a rebuttal. “Internet maps can now be personalized, allowing people to include landmarks and information that is of interest to them.”
Next time you are in South Kensington, London, trust Open Street Maps for directions to landmarks such as the Science Museum, Royal Albert Hall or the Natural History Museum. Trash Google Maps, these landmarks are not there until you painstakingly search for them. And that’s bad for any Brit tapping on his Blackberry for the name of the pub on the next street corner.
Image credits: Top: Ewen and Donabel at Flickr under a Creative Commons license and above: Google Font
Are you missing some punctuation in that first paragraph/sentence? I had to read it 3 times and I’m still not sure I totally get it:
“Being sticklers for detail, the British are crying foul that internet cartographers are making unmarked ruins of UK historical sites that landmarks such as Stonehenge have taken direct hits from internet and satellite navigation systems much so they cannot be found on online maps.”
It confused the hell out of me too.