Since its creation, Google Maps has become a fundamental tool to locate or identify places around the world. In his vast information, moreover, we can explore almost the entire planet thanks not only to the maps, but also to the images captured by satellite and those provided by the complementary function ‘street view‘. From a simple mobile, we no longer have to imagine cities or landscapes. We can see them directly on the screen.
However, there are corners that escape even the eye of the great internet giant. This is what happens, for example, with sensitive geographical areas for states from the point of view of their security. Google has gone too far and the detail of its images can compromise information that governments prefer to keep secret.
But some of these spaces banned from the digital eyes of the curious are sometimes submerged in mystery and give rise to all kinds of theories.
These are some of the places banned or blurred in Google:
North Korea
North Korea is one of the most hermetic countries in the world. And that is reflected in the digital map of Google Maps. Beyond the places deleted for military or security reasons, large areas of the country appear blurred or with very little information regarding the names of places or streets. Until 2013 it was the only place on the planet that did not appear in the search engine’s cartography.
Israel
Without going to the extremes of North Korea, Israel limits the quality of satellite images of the country, something that is noticeable when zooming in on specific areas. However, Google does offer complete map information and allows you to walk the streets with ‘Street View’.
Border of Mexico with the United States
A section of the border between Mexico and the United States it appears blurred in the images of Google Maps. It is a space around the Rio Grande that separates Chihuahua from Texas.
Fortress of Isabel II (Menorca)
Military areas are places that usually appear blurred or pixelated on Google Maps. One of them is the fortress of Isabel II, on the Mola peninsula, in Mahón (Menorca). On the same island, not far away, another erased area appears, the Es Castell barracks.
Jeannette Island (Russia)
Google does not show the jeannette islandthe easternmost of the De Long group of the New Siberian Archipelago, in the East Siberian Sea, which is part of Russia. What any user can see is a black spot.
Carles Puigdemont’s residence in Belgium
Occasionally, some properties appear pixelated at the request of owners or tenants. And that seems to be the case of the residence in Waterloo (Belgium) of the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont.
2125 Seymour Avenue, in Cleveland (United States)
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In some cases, the veto comes from the search engine itself. The internet giant does not show a house in Cleveland (United States) in which a man kept three young people who he previously kidnapped -two of them minors-, and raped for nearly a decadeuntil 2013, in one of the most serious cases of violence against women in recent decades in the US.