These days have seen an important step forward for Google Europe’s expansion on the continent. The latest EU member to finally join Google Street View is Cyprus, where the Google Maps team has photographed the southern part of the island. Meanwhile, on the mainland, Bosnia and Herzegovina has become the latest Balkan country to receive official coverage.
Cyprus
Precedents
Last year, we reported that the JSAN Consulting Group was looking for Cypriot drivers on the island. The way Google covered the island was somewhat different this time because they did not transport vehicles by boat from the mainland to the island as they did in Malta. Instead, they opted for vehicles registered in Cyprus to photograph the streets equipped with the new portable camera, colloquially known as “Smallcam”.
Cyprus has a complicated history of border disputes and geopolitical issues, with the island divided into a DMZ between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which was not covered by Google this time as it has different legislation and government.
It should be noted that this is not technically the first coverage on the island available to the public. Last year, we reported that imagery of some border roads in Akrotiri and Dhekelia had finally been released ahead of time. This place is a sovereign territory of the United Kingdom on the island of Cyprus, which has a polygon with different metadata from the rest of the island that allowed some fragments of coverage to be published earlier, such as the A6 in Paramali.
Current Spread
The first official coverage taken on the island can be traced back to late 2023, although it was not done with cameras produced by Google but with equipment done by NCTech, which have yielded mixed results in terms of image quality. Interestingly, the coastal city of Larnaca was one of the first to receive this type of coverage in October 2023.
Google would cover the city for the second time in mid-2024, where between July and August, drivers would again use these cameras to cover the port, but it was not until October of that same year that a transition to official cameras was seen.
From September to October 2024, Cypriot drivers began using the new portable camera to capture images of the island’s streets, specifically in the capital area where the Google Maps team began photographing much of Nicosia over several weeks. It should be noted that Nicosia is a rather special city, as it is currently the only capital divided into two factions in the world.
During the same frame, Cypriot drivers covered much of the Limassol metropolitan area between September and October last year. Unlike places such as Larnaca, the Google Maps team mainly deployed cars equipped with Gen 4 cameras to cover this coastal city.
Starting in November 2024, drivers would enter Paphos, the fourth-largest city in the Republic, where the mapping team photographed the area around the Tombs of the Kings, an important necropolis for this region of Cyprus; other important monuments that were captured by 360-degree cameras include the Church of Panagia Theoskepasti.
Not only was the capital area covered, but the Google Maps team also focused on covering small settlements in the district starting that month, the most notable being Poli Crysochous, one of the largest tourist centers near the Akamas Peninsula.
On the other hand, the Google Maps team also photographed a lot of roads around the mountains, including the E910 road, which passes near the Mount Olympus area within the Troodos Mountains. Another important site within this mountainous area is the Holy and Sovereign Monastery of Kikkos, located just 18 kilometers from Mount Olympus.
Bad Quality Coverage
The coverage is quite extensive, although it should be noted that some areas were covered using third-party cameras instead of official equipment produced in-house by Google Maps, something that is unfortunately being frequently used by various mapping teams across the continent.
In the case of Cyprus, the Famagusta District has been mainly covered with this type of camera. Throughout July last year, Cypriot drivers covered one of the most isolated districts of the Republic of Cyprus, where most of its claimed territory is under the control of the TRNC, focusing on photographing Paralimni, Ayia Napa, and Deryneia.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the largest gaps in coverage on the Balkan Peninsula. In recent months, both the Google Street View and Apple Look Around teams have begun photographing a number of cities across the Balkans.
Originally, Google had sent a fleet of Dutch vehicles to Sarajevo to take photographs in early 2024. It was only this year that Google deployed vehicles equipped with the new portable camera on Bosnian streets, almost in the same time frame where sightings of these cameras had been reported in other parts of the Balkans, such as Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Montenegro.
The coverage also includes rural areas as well as roads adjacent to the Blidinje Nature Park located in the Dinaric Alps, as well as the Buško Lake within Livanjsko Polje.
Meanwhile, in the Republika Srpska, in April of this year, local drivers photographed several roads adjacent to Kozara National Park for the first time.
| Date | Cities covered |
| April 2024 | Sarajevo |
| May 2024 | Visoko, Hadžići |
| June 2024 | Zenica, Mostar |
| July 2024 | Trebinje, Bihać |
| August 2024 | Tuzla, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Luckavac, Brčko, Cazin |
| September 2024 | Banja Luka, Travnik, Gračanica, Livno |
| October 2024 | Gradiška, Doboj |
What’s next for Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Armin Hamidović, responsible for monitoring Google Maps operations in Europe, explained at a press conference in Sarajevo that this would not be the end of the project in the country, and that the next phase of the project would see drivers in Bosnia focus on the remaining main roads (Magistralna cesta) and secondary roads (Regionalni cesta) that had not been covered in the first stage of the project.
Although the work done by the Google Maps team in BiH has been impressive, it is worth mentioning that towns adjacent to the Sava River right at the border with Croatia were not covered, such as Orašje and Šamac.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, towns such as Karakaj and Bratunac adjacent to the Drina River on the border with Serbia aren’t covered either.
