Sunday, August 19, 2007

Web Over india's map

India is in it's 60th year OF INDEPENDENCE. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It is the worlds most diverse country. There have been several wars that we have fought with our neighbours like PAKISTAN & CHINA over the years.


I was checking my visitors at Google Analytical in "Map Overlay". Map overlay is a feature that lets me know how many visitors I had per country on a map. If you click on a particular country on the map it takes you to that country and it show the visitor of that country ,city wise (see the pic below).



I had seen the map of India at Google analytical several times but didn't pay any notice to it. Today when i was looking at it i suddenly found out that India -Pak border was not properly displayed. Even India-china border was not proper. It shows POK as part of Pakistan this could be allowed as it's administered by PAK. Even the Aksai Chin plateau area is not properly displayed.These are disputed areas that either countries claim it to be theirs. This map shows these regions as PAK's and China's respectively. SO does it means that Google takes Pak's and China's side. No Google is far better than.

Before we head into reading you need to know a bit of facts

CHINA dispute from wikipedia(read full story)
China and India share a long border. A number of disputed regions lie along this border: at its western end is the Aksai Chin region and Xinjiang (Sinkiang). The eastern border, between Burma and Bhutan, comprises the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North East Frontier Agency wich was overrun by China in the 1962 conflict/war.

PAK dispute from winkipedia(Read full story)
The disputed territory POK is claimed by both India and Pakistan, but controlled by Pakistan.

I decided to do some research as to what did other sites show. I decided to visit only those sites that specialise in this field i.e either encyclopedia or map sites.


I visited

  • maps.google.com

  • maps.yahoo.com

  • mappoint.msn.com

  • mapquest.com

  • wikimapia.org


I first headed over to Maps.google.com Owned by Google.This showed the correct map. The disputed regions were shown in dotted lines and that's fair enough. Another area which China claimed i.e Arunacjal pradesh(just next to butan) is shown in dotted lines although it's now Indian state. To tell you the truth google powered maps( i dont mean alalytical like sites) were the only site that site that showed correct map . So thumbs Up for Google Maps


You can view the full map over here



Next i went to Yahoo Maps. They had launched several new features.This made the site load too slow. It took me almost 2-3 min to zoom into that level.But finally i got it. Here the story was quiet different. Aksai Chin plateau area was shown separately. POK was shown as Pakistani. They have shown the Aksai Chin plateau as a separate country i.e it's represent by the same line as that of a country. So yahoo maps sucks



Just check Map of india at Yahoo Maps





Next stop was Microsoft's virtual earth aka Msn map.This was bit better than Yahoo. This showed POK as pak region but the plaetue is shown as a disputed region. It's shown with dotted line unlike yahoo.They even showed Arunachal pradesh also in dotted lines although it's an Indian state.


See the complete map at Msn Virtual Earth


I also tryied out AOL'S mapquest. This site turned out to be much like Microsoft . There was only one change the border b/w POK and India was shown in dotted line.




At Wikipedia's map(wikimapia) everything perfectly fine as it was powered by Google. This was much much of a physical map but showed everything correctly.



Check out full map Over Here

My Final destination was Britannica this as expected showed the right map. See the map


Just reminder that Google Analytical only gives us details regarding our site and not about the worlds. It has to show these region as part of one country or other or else it would lead in to problem. If there are visitors from these region what would Google do. Several such disputed regions exist in the world.It has to cant show them separately as it's of no use or importance to a webmaster. It only that we Indians have been unlucky and these regions have been excluded from India.



But sites like Yahoo, Msn and others should show the right map.

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