Thread: Google Maps That Rock!

I looked at quite a few of China when I was working on Haibianr. I sampled many of my rice paddy colors from the fields near Yuanyang (link) because I had no idea how they would look from above.

And, of course, the Forbidden City is always simply awesome (link). It's even better from the ground. [edit]Heh. Look at all those friggin' people. Wow.
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The Forbidden City looks so cool from the areal shot (and in person, yeah)--I know if I made a map like that I'd say "now wait a second, RE--no one would build a structure that square, symmetrical, and dramatic in real life...." but there it is.

Hah. Someone mentioned how symmetrical my government palace and monkery were in Haibianr and I suggested they go look at the Forbidden city. The Chinese emperors (and the people that copied them) were a bit nutty I think...just pan around until you find the little manmade lake and mountain...lol.
M

I've always loved this one:

http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&source...33023&t=k&z=16

Cool! I've never even thought to go there.
M

Thanks for the links guys.

I just installed Google Chrome and it is indeed really fast.

Thanks, Neon. Anybody besides me find it hilarious that there's a golf course within a long drive of the Giza pyramids?

Avebury is cool... more decrepit than Stonehenge, but the circle has become part of a village. Got to be a story behind the crop circle to the NE...

Canals, even low-tech ones, can climb quite a hill with enough locks: Caen Hill Flight.

If you like odd little symbols, these guys have their own glyphs on the Ordnance Survey maps of the UK. The symbols are out of scale - it takes a lot of zooming to spot these on Google Maps. They'd make dandy waymarks for cultures using airships. Or flying carpets, I suppose...

Land use along rivers in pre-mechanized western cultures always seems to look the same: long thin strips radiating away from the river (or road, or whatever the linear shared resource is) to maximize land area of each owner while maximizing total number of accessable riverfront properties. Even in the US such things were continuing: http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&source...07274&t=k&z=12

And there are lots of very square ceremonial building complexes around the world built at lots of differing times:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...07274&t=h&z=12

http://maps.google.com/maps?source=s...38409&t=h&z=15

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...76818&t=k&z=14

As far as a convergence of interesting geology and "interesting" humanity, I like http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...916382&t=h&z=8 as an example. In the west is the empty lakebed of Tulare Lake, in the North the empty bed of Owens Lake, just off the south is the Salton Sea, and just off the east edge is Lake Mead - all of these things were destroyed or created by getting water into Los Angeles within the last 100 years. Also within the area are the highest and lowest points in the continental US, plus a great many high-aspect mountain ranges. The eastern face of the Sierra Nevada, for example, drops a couple of miles vertically in just about the same distance, making it one of the more rugged mountain edges in the world. The Panamint range on the west edge of Death Valley is etched in high relief with the classic "caterpillar" pattern that many folks like to map. There are also dozens of volcanoes within that area. To the south is the nighmare that is the LA/San Diego metropolitan area with roughly 20 million people living cheek by jowl in their own filth.

That was almost poetic, especially the last bit. The shot of Angkor Wat is incredible. I'm going to have to learn more about it now. The rectangular "sunken city" thing to the west intrigues me.
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