Google Crowdsources Mapping Africa

Google’s efforts to map Africa have been increasing significantly over the past year. Little more than a year ago Googling Kampala, Uganda returned a blank green screen indicating the area was nothing but forests. In other words, according to Google Maps the city didn’t exist. More recently, however, the detail of maps on Google Earth and Google Maps is getting more refined and accurate. Searching for Kampala, Uganda now returns all the major roads of the area, the major suburbs and buildings…with images.

In Kenya, their efforts where improved when seven students took mapping Nairobi into their own hands. Apparently Google has learned from this and is now asking Africans to map their home countries and cities like only they can with Google MapMaker.

MapMaker was actually launched back in August but as of October 2, forty-five new countries have been added: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Morocco (including Western Sahara), Zambia, Zimbabwe.