OSM doesn't have a satellite view. The first thing I noticed by looking at Google's satellite images was just how mountainous North Korea actually is. The country appears to be mostly mountains to me.
You're right that OSM doesn't have satellite imagery (though various partners that use their vector data such as Bing, Mapbox, Mapquest do), but it does have mountains, illustrated a bit more clearly than on a satellite image imho. I'm not sure it's that mountainous compared with some of its neighbours:
OSM's map is definitely more detailed and has been online for several years now. And while they are both crowd-sourced, Google's version is closed data. It's a real shame. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_Map_Maker
Though they're generally the smaller, less developed nations that they don't have existing data for, so although the have "France" listed it actually seems to only let you edit French Guiana.
I assume Google would like to have ownership of the data themselves, but that's not really possible in more developed nations at the moment so they're starting small.
The ariel imagery still isn't as good as Bing, but the new road layouts are much better. However they don't appear to have the river traces which Bing has.
It's interesting because after reading Escape from Camp 14 last year I looked in to visiting the DPRK, considering the moral rammifcations of directly giving cash to the country via one of the approved tourist agencies.
Luckily before I had to decide if it was OK, I found the rules about being a tourist.
No Smartphone.
No Radio devices of any kind (no GPS!).
No Computers.
No digital storage above 4GB.
No digital camera with "powerful" lens (they never did clarify).
I went there in April 2012. Computers are OK, and while the border guards check your luggage and take your phone (you'll get it back when leaving) they are incompetent; I brought an iPad and a camera with GPS. The camera even said "GPS" on it, and the guard noticed. But I acted confused and he let me have it back.
You're right about not wanting to support the government there, but the tourism industry is quite insignificant and not a major source of income for the regime. Do consider the moral implications of being used for internal propaganda, though. You'll be photographed wherever you go, and smiling is not really optional.
I remember the Brownstone residence I stayed at was on a block which had some street names. I found that unusual, especially since nobody knows the names of the streets anyway.
Has anyone noticed all the blue roofs in satellite maps of North Korea and China? A quick search hinted that all industrial buildings are painted blue, much in the way construction vehicles are yellow.
At first glance, it looks like a mapping detail injected by Google Maps. Anyone have more information on these blue rooftops?
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[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 51.7 ms ] threadhttp://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=39.0174&lon=125.7408&#...
Especially since OSM's map has been there for ages now.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=39.03&lon=126.558&...
The data is sourced from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission:
http://srtm.usgs.gov/mission/maptheworld.php
I assume Google would like to have ownership of the data themselves, but that's not really possible in more developed nations at the moment so they're starting small.
Next step street view!
- link company and product names to search engine spam pages
- giant image at the top to monetize 'below the fold'
- tagged with more search engine spam pages
Please don't be ungrateful.
It's interesting because after reading Escape from Camp 14 last year I looked in to visiting the DPRK, considering the moral rammifcations of directly giving cash to the country via one of the approved tourist agencies.
Luckily before I had to decide if it was OK, I found the rules about being a tourist.
No Smartphone. No Radio devices of any kind (no GPS!). No Computers. No digital storage above 4GB. No digital camera with "powerful" lens (they never did clarify).
You're right about not wanting to support the government there, but the tourism industry is quite insignificant and not a major source of income for the regime. Do consider the moral implications of being used for internal propaganda, though. You'll be photographed wherever you go, and smiling is not really optional.
Would be interested to hear the account of someone who's a geek enough to hang round here.
I went with a so-called "Friendship Delegation" to celebrate the birthday of Kim Il-Sung. Quite an unusual experience.
http://goo.gl/maps/6IiCp
People took the time to "review" the place too. There are two comments there which have useful information, the others are people trying to be funny.
What's interesting though, is that the date stamps go back about two months. Evidently this information has been up for at least that long.
You have to wonder if there were some real non-tourist motives to the meeting that we'll never hear about first-hand.
At first glance, it looks like a mapping detail injected by Google Maps. Anyone have more information on these blue rooftops?
Example (Sinuiju, North Korea): https://maps.google.com/maps?q=North+Korea&hl=en&ll=...