

Thoughts on Google's "Terrain" maps - j053003
http://www.41latitude.com/post/705943706/google-maps-terrain-maps

======
ambiate
Richland Chambers Reservoir shows up as "Corsicana River" on terrain data. I
asked around and was told that 20+ years ago that was the name of the river
before they broke a dam and extended the area. Perhaps the data being used to
map terrain areas is quite old?

~~~
trafficlight
I know that the Montana topographic quads are based off of surveys done in the
60s and 70s. A lot of them have been updated, but the names don't always get
changed.

------
yellowbkpk
Google hasn't spent the time to go through and prioritize the labels. I
imagine they could do this fairly automatically with their web index, but it's
still a fairly large chunk of work for a relatively small benefit. I'm sure
most people hit the maps from a search, not just to drag the map around and
critique the labeled markers.

~~~
jack_robbieson
_I'm sure most people hit the maps from a search, not just to drag the map
around..._

I know people who spend hours dragging the map around in Google Earth. And
while I'm sure that a lot of people are going to the terrain maps via a
search, there's most certainly another large chunk of people on there just
dragging the maps around (I do it myself in a number of mashups/web apps that
I visit regularly).

Given the post's examples, I think the critique is more than warranted, and I
also think you're underestimating the benefit of prioritizing the labels.

Consider this: if paper maps disappear (along with the newspapers), shouldn't
there be something marking the seas, mountains, and deserts?

~~~
pyre
I don't like the idea that paper maps will disappear though. But I also don't
like the idea that 'always on' Internet everywhere means that everything
should reside in the 'cloud' (for as much as the term even means any more). If
paper maps are going to disappear, I would want there to be some sort of an
off-line replacement b/c maps are probably one thing that is used more often
in areas outside of cell service.

~~~
_delirium
That's one reason (among many) I like OpenStreetMaps, since it has an API that
lets you download subsets of data for offline usage, along with bulk dumps of
the whole thing. Allows for all sorts of offline uses, not to mention data
mining, that are impossible with Google Maps.

~~~
garibaldi
OpenStreetMaps is great for offline usage, I just wish the online page was
faster.

------
thwarted
_I’m puzzled by Google’s labeling decisions on their "Terrain" maps._

Replace "Terrain" with anything else and that's pretty much the subject of all
of this blog's entries. I don't know why the naming on the terrain maps would
be any better than the labeling on any of the other map modes.

------
frognibble
If Google can distinguish references to different features with the same name
on web pages, then Google should rank features by number of references on the
web and label accordingly.

------
superk
You can report mistakes
([http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...](http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=162873)).
I reported one once... about 6 months later received an email from google
saying it was fixed... it was. Of course a wikipedia-API would be awesome.
Google usually likes things like that:
<http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/>

------
davidw
It has actually improved, I think. They used to label weird little water
features even at fairly zoomed out levels. You'd see a map of some state and
see "Level Ditch #4" in the middle of Oregon or Idaho or something.

Incidentally, I think Google Maps is one of the coolest things ever... I used
to love to look at USGS quad maps as a kid, and now I get something that is
80% as good for pretty much the entire world. How cool is that...

------
nix
I don't think the terrain tiles get much attention. For a while it was really
excited about irrigation ditches, then a few months ago lots of river rapids
showed up. Hopefully they'll make the relief shading layer available in styled
maps at some point.

------
teaspoon
Could it be that these terrain maps are compiled from hiking maps, which tend
to be very local and don't label obvious or general features like "the Nile"
or "the Alps"?

~~~
pwn2queen7
I can't think of a single hiking map I've ever seen that didn't label rivers,
no matter how "obvious" they were.

To me, "terrain map" means "physical map". If the "terrain" maps are intended
for hikers, Google should instead label them as "hiking" maps. But I doubt
that they are intended purely as "hiking" maps... none of the trails near my
house are on them.

~~~
lutorm
"Terrain" to me means "topographic". That's not the same as hiking maps, it
mostly means that it has elevation contours.

