Google Maps Adds Over 1/4 Of World’s Countries

The number of countries in the world depends, as you might expect, on your definition of “country.”  But for the purposes of this article, we’ll peg that number at 192, and point out that the latest expansion to Google Maps saw nearly 30 percent of them get encompassed.

Google Maps Adds Over 1/4 Of World’s Countries All right, so the exact percentage is 28.125, but it’s still an impressive accomplishment.  “We’ve more than doubled our coverage of Latin America and are now mapping three times as many countries in Asia as before,” noted Dave Barth, one of Google’s product managers, on the Google LatLong Blog.

Barth goes on to list all of the 54 countries that were added; we’ll just hit some of the highlights here.  Afghanistan, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam were the nations that most easily caught my eye.

Unfortunately, there may not be a lot to be seen at some of those locations within Google Maps.  “We have better detail for some countries than others,” admitted Barth, “but this is just the beginning.  In coming months, we’ll be working tirelessly to add more detail to the existing countries in Google Maps, and we’ll also be adding new countries to the list.”

It’ll be interesting to discover what sort of tally Google arrives at when counting the world’s nations.