June has been both a good and bad month for updates in Google Street View. While we haven’t got much in updates, a ton of new places have had the Google car spotted, and most recently: Kazakhstan! Along with this, there have been major updates with new trekker coverage, updates to coverage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mongolia and Ecuador, but sadly more bad cam coverage has been found.
๐ฐ๐ฟ Kazakhstan
A Google Street View truck has been spotted in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan a couple of days ago in the north of city, which lacks coverage and the location it was spotted at doesn’t even have coverage. This also confirms that Google will be driving in the country again after previously covering it between 2022 and 2023 and this is also our first spotting in Kazakhstan that doesn’t come from an official source, which means they could’ve also been driving the country before this which isn’t known of. We can hopefully expect more rural coverage this time. With Google competing with Yandex recently in Kazakhstan, Google may consider covering countries like Armenia and Uzbekistan, which have Yandex coverage but not Google, with Armenia recently getting an update this year.
๐ง๐ฆ Bosnia and Herzegovina
Google has been driving in Bosnia and Herzegovina for two months now, already covering more of Sarajevo and a significant portion of the center of the country, including the cantons of Zenica-Doboj, Central Bosnia, Herzegovina-Neretva (where Mostar is located), and most recently, West Herzegovina. Recently, a job offer was made in Banja Luka, the largest city in the entity of Republika Srpska and the second largest city in the country. Job offers were also made in Bihaฤ and Bosanska Krupa, the two largest towns in the Una-Sana canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the northwest of the country. Currently, we only know that they’ve driven in the part of this entity near Sarajevo, so we can expect them to drive there soon. We also received confirmation of full coverage, but only on paved roads.
๐บ๐ธ Trekker Coverage
There have recently been many new Gen 4 Trekker spottings around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada. In Canada, a spotting occurred in Toronto. In the United Kingdom, there were sightings in London and Bristol. In the United States, new trekkers were seen in New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles. Several cities in Japan, such as Tokyo, Niigata, Fukuoka, and Utsunomiya, also had new spottings. New York City recently received its first update since 2022 and its first new trekkers since 2023, with several new trekkers around the city and a large one on the waterfront at Hoboken with Philadelphia also receiving new trekker coverage. A few weeks ago, we also learned about trekker coverage at airports in Milan, Los Angeles, and Prague, which will probably be released soon. The project to map the stations of the London Underground continues, with Liverpool Street Station in London being covered next week.
๐ธ๐ช Bad Camera coverage / ๐ฐ๐ผ Kuwait
Unfortunately, with the good news comes the news of more countries being covered by the bad camera. Sweden and Lithuania received their first bad cam spottings, and more have been found in other countries, such as Italy and the Netherlands. A spotting with the bad cam was also seen in Kuwait, although this spotting was said to be from Kuwait Finder, which has its own Street View service in Kuwait. There is still a possibility that this is Google, as there were recent job offers for Google Street View in the country a couple of months ago. We can only hope that these won’t be released and with Gen 4 instead.
๐ฒ๐ณ Mongolia (+ ๐ช๐จ Ecuador)
The Google Street View project in Mongolia that we reported on a couple of days ago has now started and they’ve already covered two new provinces of the country with their first Gen 4 coverage.
You can read more about this update here: https://pensamientosdigitalesaleatorios.blogspot.com/p/news-bulgan-and-gobi-altai-will-be.html
As for Ecuador, a spotting was posted by by FIA REGION IV – LATAM on their Instagram, probably in the capital of Quito. This spotting is the first spotting in Ecuador we’ve received in three months and it appears they are still in the capital. This confirms that there are at least two Google trucks in Ecuador, possibly even more.
If you want to stay updated in these updates, you can join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/KBr4aJCaFe where you can also find more info on these updates and the sources. We should also be receiving new coverage in Switzerland soon, covering the entire country with 2023 coverage and coverage in Flinders Island, an uncovered island in Tasmania, Australia.