North Korea maps Search for "North Korea" in Google Maps today, and you'll get a whole new perspective.
Citizen cartographers have helped label landmarks in that enigmatic and repressive state, which Google pushed live late Monday. Charting North Korea using its Map Maker software was a four-year process, David Marx, head of product PR for Google Asia-Pacific, tells Yahoo!. The vetting process for a nation once labeled part of an "axis of evil" isn't much different from other countries: To guard against misleading information, users have to be signed into their Google account to contribute and are reviewed by fellow mapping volunteers. "However, we do also have a small team of reviewers across the globe that may review and moderate updates in Map Maker to ensure data quality," Marx added.
"We know this map is not perfect," wrote senior product manager Jayanth Mysore in the company blog Google Lat Long. "While many people around the globe are fascinated with North Korea, these maps are especially important for the citizens of South Korea who have ancestral connections or still have family living there."
Related: Google Unveiled Detailed Map of N. Korea
Deep dives into North Korea
The use of North Korean satellite maps, however, has been geared less to matters of kinship and more about its human rights abuses and nuclear armament. DPRK Digital Atlas ? based on Google Earth ? recently debuted a detailed satellite overview of North Korea. The project, based out of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins School of Advanced International studies (SAIS), emerged as a partnership with 38 North and North Korean Economy Watch (NKEW). NKEW editor Curtis Melvin, a Ph.D. student in economics at George Mason University, released an incredibly detailed map back in 2009, documenting railroad systems, compounds? complete with water slides?belonging to that country's elite, breweries, ostrich farms, and gulags.
"Satellite imagery is one of the few ways for foreigners to comprehend North Korea?s economic and security infrastructure, because information is so restricted," SAIS research associate Jenny Town notes in an email to Yahoo!. "Through satellite imagery we can see changes not only in the North?s missile and nuclear sites, but also markets and roads and other infrastructure which help us better understand how the North is developing. It is a good thing that Google Maps has become interested in North Korea, and we hope they will continue to refine their information."
Intense satellite scrutiny
For its part, 38 North has been closely monitoring satellite imagery to track the development of long-range missiles at North Korea's Sohae Satellite Launching Station and a possible upcoming nuclear test at Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility.
Analysis of new satellite imagery from January 23, 2013 and previous images dating back a month reveal that the site appears to be at a continued state of readiness that would allow the North to move forward with a test in a few weeks or less once the leadership in Pyongyang gives the order. Snowfall and subsequent clearing operations as well as tracks in the snow reveal ongoing activity at buildings and on roadways near the possible test tunnel. A photo from January 4 identifies a group of personnel, possibly troops or security guards, in formation in the yard of the administrative area near the test tunnel entrance, perhaps to greet visiting officials or for some other more routine purpose. (Jan. 25, 38 North)
The scrutiny's especially intense these days, after the United Nations's threat of sanctions if North Korea follows through with its test. A war of words has been launched, with a China editorial warning of reduced aid, South Korea's support of the resolution, and North Korea's fury directed at its southern neighbor, warning of "merciless retaliatory blows."
Yet in the meantime, leader Kim Jong Un reportedly plans to open North Korea to foreign investment, similar to Vietnam's economic development, to turn around the impoverished nation. He has already invited German economists and lawyers to plot that direction. With all this, map-watching North Korea may become a whole new online sport.
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