A quick update on China’s newly launched Map World: Chinese neogeographer William Long has posted a review of Map World on his blog (English translation), wherein he notes that at least some of the imagery in Map World is gleaned from American satellite imaging company DigitalGlobe: William compared Map World’s imagery of Tiananmen to Google Earth’s historical imagery archive and found identical imagery from DigitalGlobe dated Feb 9, 2007. (He posts comparison screenshots.) Google Earth, meanwhile, carries imagery from as recently as Nov 8, 2009.

But he makes the most surprising discovery when he manages to get the 3D viewer to work: Map World’s 3D navigation tool bears more than a passing resemblance to Google Earth’s own, in terms of style:

Can you tell which is which?

(Screenshot. Seriously now, not even an attempt to camouflage the ripoff? Still, what is Google going to do, sue the Chinese government?)

His other point worth mentioning: the 3D view doesn’t actually do 3D. It doesn’t render elevation. It is merely the 2D imagery projected onto a sphere. The one advantage over 2D: The 3D imagery doesn’t suffer the 2D imagery’s north-south compression due to Map World’s funky projection.

[Update 15:54 UTC: China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has now clarified its earlier statements, to the effect that while the software powering Map World is wholly Chinese, the imagery is indeed purchased from DigitalGlobe. I didn’t think this was an issue, but apparently many Chinese users were under the impression that the service was completely home-grown.]

The tech news channel of the Chinese portal Sina.com.cn today carries a news update on the legal status in China of ditu.google.cn, the version of Google Maps intended for mainland Chinese users. The original is here; I used the occasionally hilarious Google translation.

In short, things are still not looking up for Google. Sina’s article references government sources who state that Google will definitely not get its license by the end of the year, when China’s laws on internet mapping will begin being enforced in earnest. The implication is that the site will thenceforth be blocked in China.

The proffered reasons are two-fold:

1. The mapping server must be located in China, and the server’s IP address must be shared with the government. The article implies this is not currently the case.

2. Organizations providing web-based maps in China must be joint ventures. Google’s operations in China are not.

The first reason is a bit puzzling: The IP address for ditu.google.cn is listed as being 203.208.39.99, which is in Beijing. Still, it’s possible this is the Chinese node of a relay connecting a server physically located in the US. Perhaps the IP address of the originating “server” is opaque for technical reasons — for example, it might be a service distributed across Google’s many server farms — in which case providing a single public IP address to the Chinese government isn’t possible. But I’m speculating.

Note that the above objections do not mention map borders that are not in accordance with Chinese law or the presence on the maps of unvetted user-generated content. That’s because ditu.google.cn’s map borders have long complied with Chinese law, while the site eschews any and all user-generated features, in order to avoid having to censor them.

It’s also possible that this article is a negotiating ploy — making sure the government’s demands are stated publicly so it is clear they are not negotiable. In that case, the intention is still to get Google to form a joint venture and host its Chinese map server on Chinese soil. If plans are not already afoot to make this happen, it is unlikely to be ready by January 2011.

I’ve previously argued that the continued existence of ditu.google.cn is inconsistent with Google’s decision to stop censoring its search services in China, and that the service should be killed off. One way to do so would be for Google not to comply with these new regulatory demands. And that seems indeed to be Google’s current path.

Sina’s article mentions that Microsoft is also not on the list of approved web mapping licensees, for its Chinese version of Bing Maps (at cn.bing.com/ditu). That mapping service does not have the ubiquity of Google Maps, however — for example as the default service for the iPad and iPhone, which are proving wildly popular in China. iPhones sold in China have their default map app locked to ditu.google.cn. What happens if that site is no longer available in China?

It’s not a stretch to infer that the hardening of web mapping regulations in China is coordinated with the timely launch of Map World, a robust government-run web mapping service. Can’t get Google Maps anymore in China in 2011? There will be Map World — just don’t hold out any hope for an API so that you can add user-generated content on your own website. In China, neogeography is not an approved pursuit.

(It will be interesting to see what happens to Google Earth’s accessibility in China in 2011.)

China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping today released their long-anticipated web-based mapping tool, Map World (§©Âú∞Âõæ), Reuters reports. it’s located at www.tianditu.cn/ and you can give it a go right now; it’s in Chinese only but the controls are intuitive enough.

Just some very brief observations, as I have a flight to catch:

• The 2D mapping tool, which lets you toggle between maps and satellite imagery, is available both for Mac and Windows browsers, and requires no additional plugins. Mapping tiles loaded quite responsively for me.
• Imagery of Shanghai Expo 2010 and Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is more recent than Google’s imagery. Imagery of Kashgar is older than Google’s imagery. [Update 2010-10-26: As William Long has pointed out, imagery of Tiananmen Square is older than Google’s — identical to the DigitalGlobe image from Feb 9, 2007 in Google Earth’s historical archive.]
• Unlike in Google Maps, Map World’s projection squashes imagery and maps in the north-south direction. The Forbidden City is distinctly more square, and round buildings in Shanghai Expo are portrayed as oval.
• The 3D viewing tool requires you to download and run “GeoGloberuntime.exe” as a web plug-in, so obviously it is a Windows only tool. Once installed, it promptly crashed my copy of Internet Explorer 9 upon use, so I can’t report back more right now. I couldn’t find any mention of a GeoGlobe runtime online, so I’m not sure if this is from a third-party vendor or home-grown. (In any case, beware installing software from a Chinese government agency website).
• The maximum resolution for imagery in China (the only place I went looking) is lower than in Google Earth. I briefly went searching for censored content: Near the “secret” underground submarine base in Shandong province, tiles above a certain resolution simply don’t load for me. I can’t yet tell if this is the standard way of censoring Map World.
• The 2D web mapping tool comes with area and distance calculators, as well as a feature editor. These are accessible via the links along the tool bar running above the map.

Overall, Map World feels quite robust, far more so than the France’s GeoPortail and India’s Bhuvan at launch. If you do get the 3D plugin to work over the weekend, please let me know.

• Japan to ask Google to delete disputed islands' Chinese name on map – Monsters and Critics
  Japan's government should be above this:

  "Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Thursday the government was to call for Google Inc to remove Chinese names for a disputed set of islands in the East China Sea from the company's mapping service."

Starting in 2006, The Canadian Eric Enno Tamm retraced the steps of an expedition undertaken exactly 100 years earlier by the Finnish soldier and spy Gustaf Mannerheim, from Russia to Peking via the Silk Road. The result of Tamm’s trek is a newly released book, part travelogue and part history, that examines how China has (and hasn’t) changed in the intervening century. It’s called The Horse That Leaps Through Clouds.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy, because Tamm wrote a chapter about Kashgar, my favorite disappearing city. On the book’s website there is a web page about the chapter, which shows an intriguing map — a sketch map depicting Kashgar in 1908, as drawn by a Brit, a certain Captain A.R.B. Shuttleworth stationed at the British Consulate there.

Tamm had a go overlaying the map on Google Earth, but it seemed to me like a better fit was possible, so I asked him for the original scan of the map, which he had found in the British Library in London. He graciously sent it over.

The result is this KMZ Google Earth file (full resolution, 2.7MB), which shows the map both in its original form and as a inverse transparency:

It’s clear from trying to position the map that in places it is not topographically accurate. But by anchoring the North, South and East gates to their modern-day locations, a good number of landmarks match, including large parts of the city wall. Right away, it also becomes clear that the river’s course used to lie further East, across lowlands that are now decked in relatively modern buildings. The maps’s main discrepancy can be found in the size and orientation of the settlement to the Southeast of the city; the fortress to the west is also larger than life. In the Eastern half of the cities, the topology of the mapped alleys is tantalizingly familiar, though without producing accurate matches.

The overlay makes a great companion to the KMZ Google Earth file produced from the week I spent in Kashgar this past summer documenting the ongoing demolition of most of the old city. With this “new” old map, it’s even clearer how much of the destruction is going on inside the circumference of the old city walls.

(As always, play with the transparency slider to get the most out of the various layers in the Google Earth files linked to above.)

• North Korea Appears Capable of Jamming GPS Receivers – Voice of America
  "Defense officials in South Korea and military analysts elsewhere are expressing concern about what they call a new type of threat from Pyongyang. The North Koreans, according to South Korea's government, are now capable of disrupting GPS receivers, which are a critical component of modern military and civilian navigation."

• Google Maps – Location of Scud missiles near Adra, Syria
  Two Scud missiles are plainly visible in satellite imagery take on March 22, 2010, and visible in Google Earth/Maps. This is the link to the view in Google Maps. (As reported by Haaretz).
• Hezbollah militants training in Syria missile base, satellite images show – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
  "The [Google Earth] photos show five 11-meter-long missiles (the length of both the Scud B and the Scud C ) at the Adra base. Three are on trucks in a parking lot. Two others are in a training area where 20 to 25 people can be made out along with about 20 vehicles. One of the two missiles appears to be mounted on a mobile launcher; another is on the ground."