Mapping Errors
- Google’s Maps of Rio: Fewer Favelas, More Whitewash
- Google will be revising its maps of Rio de Janeiro after city officials complained that its labels gave too much prominence to Rio’s favelas — hundreds of shanty towns that surround the city and make up nearly a fifth of…
- When Terrain Layers Get Weird
- Clement Valla collects instances where Google Earth’s 3D terrain layer doesn’t play well with the satellite and aerial imagery — elevated highways and bridges, for the most part. The effect is redolent of Dali — and it’s what happens…
- Two Booboos
- CNN doesn’t know where Queensland is. Google doesn’t know where the Dutch-German border is. At least no one’s going to get invaded over this. (Right?) Via @xxxriainxxx and @spatialanalysis….
- Nicaraguan Incursion into Costa Rican Territory Blamed on Google Maps Error
- Nicaraguan troops crossed the border into Costa Rica and raised the Nicaraguan flag; the commander apparently cited erroneous maps from Google that showed the territory as belonging to Nicaragua: About.com Geography, Fast Company, Search Engine Land. (The border is shown…
- Google Maps Errors and Disappearing Cities
- When Google replaced map data from Tele Atlas with its own map data from a mix of sources (for the U.S. last October and for Canada last April), new errors proliferated. In some cases the wrong labels were applied —…
- U.S. Quilt Map Gone Awry
- On Regretsy, a blog about mishaps posted to Etsy stores, a quilted map of the United States gone a wee bit awry. Via John Reiser….
- More Fun with Google Maps Errors
- What’s fun about errors in Google Maps is that, thanks to the fact that Google is using its own map data assembled from diverse sources by divers hands, is that their errors are unique; errors in NAVTEQ’s or Tele…
- Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Are Apparently Underwater
- Just noticed that Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, two French islands off the coast of Newfoundland, are missing their land data in Google Maps — the roads and landmarks are there, but the outlines of the islands are not. (It’s abundantly…
- Google Hiring Workers to Fix Map Errors
- TechFlash: “Google is hiring an army of 300 temporary workers in Kirkland as part of a yearlong campaign to improve the accuracy of Google Maps. … The workers will be part of a one-year initiative to correct mistakes in Google…
- New Canadian Map Data in Google Maps Fixes Old Mistakes, Creates New Ones
- Google Maps is using new map data in Canada, abandoning the Tele Atlas data with which I had so many problems in September 2008. According to Google, “In Canada, we’ve made use of data from organizations such as the National…
- Problems with Google’s Bike Directions
- The New York Post finds fault with Google Maps’s bike directions in New York City. The feature, the Post says, “is filled with potentially fatal flaws, including routes that cut across Central Park’s treacherous tranverse roads and steer cyclists to…
- Election Map Glitch: Coakley Defeats Brown
- The Boston Globe website briefly had Martha Coakley winning the Massachusetts Senate election over Scott Brown with 100 percent of polls reporting long before the polls had closed, the Boston Herald reports (in typical journalistic Schadenfreude-with-respect-to-the-competition fashion). It was a…
- Geography Fail
- The Fail Blog does maps, too….
- ‘A Significant Step Down in Quality’
- Peter Batty weighs in on the quality of Google’s new, homegrown map data: As anyone in the geo world knows, all maps have errors, and it’s hard to do a really rigorous analysis on Google’s current dataset versus others. But…
- Too Soon?
- Steven Citron-Pousty wonders whether Google dropped Tele Atlas before their own data was ready. “Google’s routing data sucks right now and there are no two ways about it.” Via Peter. Previously: Google Stops Using Tele Atlas in the U.S….
- Weetabix Map Omits Welsh Island
- Weetabix is in a spot of trouble: its boxes and website have a map of the U.K. that omits the not-insignificant Welsh island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), and island residents are unhappy about it, in the manner typical of people…
- Museums Misplaced on London Bicycle Map
- Another one of Transport for London’s maps is in trouble: this time, a bicycle-rental map switches the locations of two well-known London museums. TfL says they’ll be fixing the error. Via Londonist….
- Google Maps Adds Error Reporting
- Google Maps adds error reporting — clicking on “report a problem” at the bottom right of the map opens a dialogue where you can place a pushpin and describe the problem. “Once we’ve received your edit or suggestion we’ll confirm…
- Boston, Toronto Get Updated Station Maps
- Boston’s MBTA is upgrading the maps in its stations; some of the neighbourhood maps haven’t been upgraded in 40 years. The system maps show services that will not be operational for another month, but that’s nothing compared to the trouble…
- Google Goofs Up in Arunachal Pradesh
- Stefan has the definitive account of what happens when Google Maps touches what has to be the live rail of cartography — erroneously publishing Chinese names of communities on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in the…
- Northern Strategy Map Omits Northern Communities
- A map illustrating the Canadian government’s northern strategy is drawing fire for leaving out Inuit communities in northern Quebec and Labrador, the Vancouver Sun reports: “while dozens of communities are identified in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the…
- Fox News Maps the Middle East
- You’d think that Fox News would know the difference between Iraq and Egypt, but apparently not….
- Garmin Recalls Data Cards Showing Inaccurate Water Depths
- It’s one thing if your road map has an error in it, quite another if your aviation or nautical maps have an error in them. It can be catastrophic. Which is why, PC World reports, Garmin is recalling data cards…
- How to Report Map Errors
- GPS Review explains how to correct an error in a map provided by GPS unit or online mapping service — a process greatly simplified by the fact that, at least in North America, there are essentially only two mapping providers…
- Cartography Snafus in NATO Map Game
- Catholicgauze points — not for the first time — to a map game on the NATO website with an appalling number of cartographic errors: China has apparently annexed a sizeable chunk of Pakistan, and Cambodia, the Korean peninsula and…
- So What If Four Corners Is a Little Off?
- It’s not that the Four Corners marker is “about 2.5 miles west of where it should be,” as the Deseret News puts it, it’s that it’s about two and a half miles west of where it should have been. Important…
- Errors in Google’s Maps of Toronto
- The Toronto Star’s Map of the Week blog discovers several errors in Google Maps’ coverage of Toronto. You may recall that I noticed a bunch of errors in my neck of the woods back in September. The blog entry is…
- Data Errors Skew LA Crime Map
- An article in today’s Los Angeles Times uses a geocoding error in the LAPD’s crime map mashup to illustrate the perils of map data error. In the case of the LAPD’s map, crimes at addresses that could not be parsed…
- Education Minister Fired over Bad Map
- Remember that erroneous map of South America published in some Brazilian school textbooks? The secretary of education for the state of São Paulo, Maria Helena Guimaraes, was fired by the state’s governor over it. Via Vector One. Previously: Brazilian School…
- Apple Map Omits Greenland, Iceland
- A map Apple used during its iPhone 3.0 announcement to show the countries in which the iPhone is available is drawing fire for omitting Greenland and Iceland. Well, from Iceland, anyway. Okay, one Icelander. Just imagine the complaints that would…
- Brazilian School Textbook Map Omits Ecuador, Bollixes Paraguay
- Okay, how does something like this happen? “A map of South America in which landlocked Paraguay is shown with an Atlantic coastline and Ecuador does not exist may be found in a [sixth-grade] geography textbook used in the public schools…
- A Collection of Accidents
- Also via The Map Scroll, a collection of accidents collected by New York Times graphics editor Matthew Bloch while working on maps and other graphics. At right, a 1917 map of Beijing “after trying to use spline-based georeferencing in…
- Cruise Ship Sinking Blamed on Map Errors
- Via GeoCarta comes this curious story about a cruise ship accident that may have been the result of faulty nautical charts of the area, rather than negligence on the part of the ship’s crew. In April 2007 the Sea Diamond…
- Bad Mapping Data and Emergency Response
- Bad mapping data has serious consequences in at least one area, Chad argues: “Emergency responders can’t get to some locations because the map data they have is WRONG. … That kind of a mistake really is the difference between life…
- Errors in Google’s Transit Ads
- Google “has added New York City transit directions and brought its ads to the Big Apple, wrapping an ‘S’ shuttle train that runs between Grand Central and Times Square. Trouble is, the directions it gives in the ads aren’t always…
- Three Mapping Errors in the News
- Sometimes a mapping error is just a mistake, as when a textbook inadvertently leaves the upper peninsula of Michigan off a map of the U.S. (via GeoCarta) or when a certain V. Putin’s Web site shows four Russian-occupied islands as…
- More on Tele Atlas and Google
- Webmapper explores the question of Tele Atlas’s questionable map quality and the reasons why Google may have dropped Navteq for ostensibly poorer map data — a question I raised in this post. An interesting post, but perplexing given its speculative…
- Google Switches to Tele Atlas, Errors Proliferate
- As was widely reported, Google Maps is now exclusively using Tele Atlas as its digital mapping data provider, dropping Navteq, which provided data for Google Maps proper but not for the Mobile or API products (All Points Blog, James Fee,…
- Georgia on My Mind
- Oops. Google News illustrates a wire story about the Russian invasion of Georgia — the one in the Caucasus — with a map whose pushpin is in Georgia, the U.S. state. Hilarity ensues. Those pesky automatic algorithms….
- Inaccurate SBA Map Excludes Eligible Firms
- “The Small Business Administration relies on an outdated, inaccurate map to maintain its billion dollar HUBZone program that is rife with fraud, according to a government report,” according to the Washington Post’s small business blog: The report said the map,…
- TV Program Shows Nepal as Part of India
- Television stations routinely make cartographic errors in their graphics, but I bet none have backfired quite like this. An Indian television program’s logo erroneously showed Nepal as part of India; Nepal was not pleased. Via GeoCarta….
- Two Longviews
- The Daily News of Longview, Washington, has a piece about another Longview, Washington that is causing some confusion online: “It may be a field rather than a city, but that other Longview has established its place on the Internet, often…
- Errors in Online Maps
- Top Causes Of Errors In Online Mapping Systems: “Causes of internet map errors range from digital mapping methodology, data errors, data interpretation errors, usability errors, and errors in interpreting user queries.” Detailed. Via Slashgeo….
- Monmonier on Mapmaking Mistakes
- On today’s edition of Weekend America, professor and writer Mark Monmonier is interviewed about mapping errors, beginning with GPS navigation errors — blame the maps, not the GPS signals — and moving on to what, the interviewer asks, the three…
- War Museum Refuses to Fix Mapping Error
- Two and a half years ago, Bill Schroeder found a mapping error on a globe at the new Canadian War Museum. The globe depicted the Boer War, and labelled Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) as Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). He’s been…
- Trap Street Found
- Oh, look: Owen found a trap street — a fictitious street inserted by a mapmaker to trap plagiarists. A cul-de-sac present in the 2000 edition of an Oxford map disappears in the 2005 edition; Owen investigates on the ground and…
- Why Do People Follow Bad Directions?
- Nicholas Forbes writes with an interesting question about why people follow bad directions — covered here ad nauseaum — that is above my pay grade: I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Nottingham UK. I have been running…
- A Year or More for Corrections and Updates
- Don’t expect instant results when you submit errors to a mapping data provider. A dentist whose office is not on the map discovers that NAVTEQ can take as much as a year, if not more, to process corrections or new…
- Apparently I’m a Pundit Now
- Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a writer for iPass who was working on an article about the accuracy of driving directions on online mapping sites. I provided some pithy comments. Her article is now online and to my…
- Housing Development Built in Wrong Place, Map Blamed
- What difference does three metres make? Plenty, according to a story from the Edinburgh Evening News: a mistake in the location of old flats on an Ordnance Survey map is being blamed for a new housing development being built in…
- The Quebec-Labrador Border
- GeoCarta notes the news that a boundary dispute between the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador has flared up over Quebec wildlife maps that show part of Labrador as belonging to Quebec. This is not new. The Quebec-Labrador…
- Around and Around and Around and Around
- Google gets a bit confused on the road to North Brunswick, New Jersey, Valleywag reports. Update, 1/23: Google has corrected the directions, but Chad has screenshots if you missed it….
- New Zealander’s Campaign to Correct Geographic Names
- A retired public servant in Wellington, New Zealand is on a campaign to correct spelling mistakes in New Zealand place names, the New Zealand Herald reports. He’s made a total of 60 submissions to the Geographic Board pointing out errors…
- Spelling Errors Persist on Devizes Tourist Map
- The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald: “A tourist map of Devizes which is littered with spelling mistakes is still on display more than two years after they were pointed out.” Oops — they were supposed to be changed more than a…
- Update: The Kims Used a Paper Map
- As I noted in an update to my earlier post, the body of James Kim was found yesterday. But online maps or GPS navigation systems cannot be blamed for the Kim tragedy, as some have surmised (based on little more…
- Were the Kims Led Astray by Online Maps?
- On the other hand, sometimes stories about being led astray by navigation systems aren’t so amusing. The tech community has been concerned about the disappearance of CNet senior editor James Kim and his family while on vacation: his family was…
- State Forest Inadvertently Renamed
- Oops. Thanks to a proofreading error, the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest appears as the “Brenda Bryan State Forest” on recently issued AAA maps of New Jersey. Byrne is a former state governor….
- Map Error Blamed for Israeli Strike on UN Observers
- CBC News: “An incorrect map and communications failure led to an Israeli air strike on a UN observer post that killed four peacekeepers. … According to [the IDF’s] confidential report, Israeli artillery were using a hand-drawn map that identified the…
- Tourist Map Inflames Argentina-Chile Border Issue
- The government of Chile is complaining about an Argentine tourist map of the Andean Southern Ice Field, the boundaries of which do not conform to a 1998 border agreement between the two countries’ presidents. The exact nature of the boundary…
- Thomas Guides, Navteq on KPCC
- On Friday the 7th, there was an item on mapping on Patt Morrison’s afternoon show on 89.3 KPCC, a public radio station based in Pasadena, California. On deck were representatives from Thomas Brothers Maps and Navteq; much of the focus…
- Crackpot Directions Send Drivers Along a Cliff
- BBC News: “Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100-ft cliff.” Another entry in the annals of errors made by in-car navigation systems. Via Slashgeo. See…
- Link Roundup for January 14
- Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum). MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities…
- Russian Maps Mislead Foreign Businesses
- The International Herald Tribune looks at the disconnect between the official maps handed out by the Russian authorities to foreign businesses, with gridlines diverging from true north and the latitudes and longitudes blotted out, with the relative ease that the…
- Copyright Traps
- Publishers frequently use “copyright traps” to prove that someone plagiarized their work. Without evidence of the actual act of plagiarism, it’s difficult to prove that someone publishing a rival phone book, dictionary or encyclopedia didn’t just copy material wholesale from…
- Seminar on Errors in Early Maps
- A seminar about errors in early maps takes place this Saturday in Annapolis, Maryland; topics for discussion include extra islands in John Smith’s maps of Chesapeake Bay (see previous entry) and maps showing California as an island….
- Campus Orientation Maps
- I misspent three years at the University of Alberta; this opinion piece in the student newspaper there, The Gateway, has this to say about the quality of the campus orientation map: “It sucks.”…
- Counterfeit Maps, Lost Drivers
- To save money, some Chinese GPS manufacturers use counterfeit maps instead of official ones; as a result, Shanghai drivers who buy the cheaper units are getting lost. Via GeoCarta and Very Spatial….
- Wrong Map Costs City $15,000
- Via GeoCarta, a report that an inaccurate map was responsible for the city of Gearhart, Oregon encroaching on private property during bridge construction. From the article: “City Manager Dennis McNally told the City Council Wednesday the city had poured the…
- More About Flood Maps
- Forbes reports that FEMA’s outdated flood maps meant that many people in Hurricane Katrina’s path didn’t have flood insurance because, according to those maps, they weren’t in a flood plain and didn’t need it. More generally on inaccurate flood maps…
- Protected Forest Logged, Mapping Error to Blame
- A protected forest in Tasmania was accidentally logged due to a mapping error, ABC News (Australia) reports. Via Cartography; see also GeoCarta. Update, 10:40 PM: From ABC News, “Forestry Tasmania general manager Kim Creek says the error was caused by…
