This is a question that we get asked a lot, so hopefully this post will help clear things up.

The short answer is that Google usually updates imagery twice a month, typically around the 6th and the 20th of each month. We highlight all of those updates on the site as soon as we’re aware of them, like the one we recently covered on September 21.

Each update covers a very small portion of the globe. For example, the United States might seen 4-6 cities updated, or perhaps a single state, and other countries receive similar minor updates. As part of each update, Google releases a KML file that shows all of the updated areas with red outlines, like this:

As a general rule, Google tries to keep every area updated to within around three years old, but that’s not always possible. However, if your area is more than three years old, it’s likely that Google is working on updating it soon.

That being said, we have no idea which areas will be updated next. We get a lot of specific questions such as “when will the imagery in Spokane, Washington be updated again?”. I promise you, we have no idea. The exception to that is when there is a major disaster, such as the earthquake in Haiti or the wildfires in Boulder, Colorado. During and after an event like that, Google posts fresh imagery as quickly as they possibly can to assist in providing useful information to emergency workers and concerned residents of the affected areas.

Lastly, don’t forget about the historical imagery. We recently showed you how the historical imagery is often fresher than the default imagery, so if you want to see the newest imagery of a particular location, the historical imagery tool might be your answer.

If you’re curious about the process used to capture and present the imagery in Google Earth, this detailed post that Frank wrote last year will be very helpful for you.

Big Picture Small World

The Big Picture Small World is a mashup of Boston.com’s The Big Picture and Google Maps. The map uses the Yahoo! Query Language to grab the RSS feed of Boston.com’s Big Picture series and to map the pictures on Google Maps.

The locations of the pictures are determined by the image captions and not by any geographical metadata in the images. This is pretty accurate in most cases but does lead to some of the images being mapped in the wrong location.

The picture collections that are mapped include some amazing photographs of the Earth taken from the International Space Station, pictures of India preparing for the Commonwealth Games, photographs from Oktoberfest and many more.

The Yahoo! Query Language is a powerful tool to query and filter data from websites. If you are looking to build a Google Map based on data from websites that don’t provide an API but provide reasonable RSS feeds it is well worth having a look at the javascript of this map to see how it works.

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Antarctica 360 Street View

Google’s new release of Street View last week included some stunning shots of Antarctica – and there are penguins!

I’ve thrown together this little application to show an automatic 360 pan of just one of the Street View images shown. When you load the page the Street View will rotate automatically. If you want to explore using Street View just press the stop button and navigate using the Street View arrows.

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