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I’ve seen that Greece actually blurs sensitive sites on google maps as well, such as airports and military installations (for obvious reasons) but I spend an unhealthy amount of time on google maps and don’t see this happening anywhere else.
In Greece it's illegal to photograph airports and military installations, which is why they are blurred.
A few years ago there was a case of some hobby plane spotters (from the UK I think) being jailed for taking photos at an airport and everyone was like wtf why, and the Greeks were like "People go plane spotting??? Weirdos..."
Also from more years ago, game developers (Bohemia Interactive, guys behind Arma/DayZ) went to Greece to photograph military installations as part of their effort to fully recreate a Greek island and got jail time.
They were there to photograph the entire island iirc, not just military installations. It was the island of Lemnos, inspiration for the ingame Island Altis,
it must be a google thing because on bing these military bases/airports are not blurred.
for example: Koufovouno 41°21′01.5″N 26°25′13″E
[google](https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B021'01.5%22N+26%C2%B025'13.0%22E/@41.3506841,26.421,453m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d41.3504167!4d26.4202778?entry=ttu)
[bing](https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=41.350822%7E26.421984&lvl=17.3&style=h)
South Korea tried to get Google to do it, but Google refused. In response, Google wasn’t allowed to make their own map, so the military bases are still blurred there
I mean a lot of countries blur out military sites. I know that The Netherlands does it as well. It wouldn't surprise of the majority of countries have things blurred out.
I actually remember looking at the military base in Texel, and it was blurred on Google Maps. However, now that i'm not in the Netherlands anymore, it's not blurred anymore either. So i think some countries just don't want it on their own version of Google maps or something, rather than having Google blur the images out? Really weird either way, and a bit of an asshole move on Google's end
The US doesn't even blur out Area 51. You can even see they have a baseball field there for the Aliens to pass the time. Even Guantanamo Bay Prison is unblurred.
The satellite company I worked for back in 2010 had to pixelate imagery of Israel - they couldn't sell 50 centimeter (1 pixel = 50 square cm) resolution imagery of the country. Forget if it was because of the NGA license or an actual US Law. Also forget if it was 1 or 2 meter imagery they were allowed to sell, but it was significantly worse than what the satellites were capable of.
Out of curiosity, I went and looked at Beijing on Apple Maps. The resolution is amazing. At first I thought it was going to be blurry as I was zooming in slowly. It turns out the buildings are ridiculously dense and you really have to zoom in to see the blocks turn into individual buildings. I knew the cities in China were dense, but I didn’t realize how dense. I live in an extremely low population density area, so it was a reality check.
I went to Shangai for work once. On the route from the airport to the center I saw a group of residential high buildings. Makes sense, I thought, it is very densely populated.
And then another one. And then another one.
Soon it looked like a nightmare. Tall Building after tall building after building. No end in sight.
> soon it looked like a nightmare
It’s no different from cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Hongkong, Singapore, etc. Even [New York](https://images.photowall.com/products/60759/new-york-skyline-5.jpg?h=699&q=85) looks like that.
Personally I think living in high rise condos are less “nightmarish” than having a housing crisis or worse, large areas of slums like you see in some other parts of the world.
Edit: I took [this photo of Shanghai](https://i.imgur.com/ctCzJOh.jpg), and [this photo of Tokyo](https://i.imgur.com/tZqfrtn.jpg), along with [this picture of Singapore](https://i.imgur.com/ak65ma1.jpg) last year when I spent a year in Asia. To some, those places look like nightmarishly depressing urban jungles. To me *personally*, they were amazingly fun cities that I prefer over any places in the U.S. Everyone has their own preferences.
Actually except Singapore, way overpriced (especially since KL is next door and so much cheaper) and the climate, even during December, can only be described as "Satan's asshole".
Yeah, I remember the first time I flew into New York. I'd never seen a city from the air that just went on for as far as the eye could see before. Amazing place, definitely would not want to live there, though. Upstate's pretty nice, but the snow gets asshole deep on a camel in the winter.
The captions on this photo are confusing. At first I thought it meant that if I am in the Apple Maps in America and I am looking inside of China, then the map is blurry. But I’m leaning towards interpreting it as someone who is in China looking at maps of other places in the world. Nevertheless, I am glad I looked at the Apple Maps of China and explore the layout of a few of their cities and just how space maximizing they are.
As someone from a dense city, I had the reverse experience looking at Texas on a Google map.
"Oh what an oddly uniform looking neighbourhood"
Zooms in
"Oh it's a carpark"
Seems like a somewhat low density actually. First you have to adjust for lots of unpopulated land in the official definition for Beijing. But even if you only count the built-up area, Beijing still has lower population density than other major capitals like Paris, London, Berlin, Delhi, Lagos, etc. Even NYC has higher density. Beijing is actually comparable in population density to Chicago.
Maybe I was looking in somewhere particularly populated. In that area, it almost looked like all these big block buildings were touching. The roads/sidewalks between the buildings are reallllllly narrow. Compared to somewhere like New York that has sizeable roads and more of an organization on the grid, it *looks* far more crowded in that Beijing Area. I believe the area I’m thinking of was south east of Tiananmen Square.
This is true for the whole country. Something about the Chinese mapping system being offset from the rest of the world to "safeguard the security of China's geographic information"
Yeah, China has an algorithm that arbitrarily offsets all lat/long for some stupid fucking reason not that authoritarian government ever has a good reason for the stuff they do but this is a particularly stupid fucking reason. The only mapping apps that are able to "fix" the data are chinese ones.
And ones that have an agreement with the Chinese government, like Apple.
The first party Chinese apps refuse to show any images at all of other countries when you try and zoom in, Apple still provides low res ones though.
Yes, the companies that choose to capitulate to a genocidal authoritarian government also get the cheat code. Do you know the reason that they decide to blur other countries on maps software?
No idea. My best guess is that the Chinese government has some sort of regulation where map images must come from an official Chinese source, but they don’t provide any high res imagery for any country other than themselves.
They also disable look around (street view) while you’re in China. Kind of sad that people in China can’t virtually explore the rest of the world on a whim.
It’s ironic you posted this comment when you are the one without any knowledge on this.
China is literally ranked [world number 1 in terms of citizens going abroad](https://www.unwto.org/news/china-recovers-its-position-as-top-spender-in-2023-as-asia-and-the-pacific-reopens-to-tourism#:~:text=China%20has%20recovered%20its%20position,headed%20by%20the%20United%20States.).
Most likely the Chinese people know more about the rest of the world than people in your country.
In fact, don’t we all love bitching about bad manners from Chinese tourists or how obnoxious Chinese international students are?
So yeah, while internet censorship definitely exists in China, I’m sure the CCP isn't too terrified of people living in [Shenzhen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen) or [Shanghai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai) seeing a *satellite* picture of Kansas lol.
What can I say, Chinese bureaucracy sometimes does mysteriously stupid things that itself can’t even explain.
You have to remember a lot of people working in the government of China are just dumbass bureaucrats, except they have more power in relative to most Western governments.
>China is literally ranked world number 1 in terms of citizens going abroad.
>Most likely the Chinese people know more about the rest of the world than people in your country.
Your logic is a bit off here. According to your spurce, Chinese tourists as a whole spend more than any other nationality, but the percentage of the population who travel is pretty small comparatively. Even just looking at the numbers you provided, UK and German citizens both spend more than half the amount that chinese citizens do, while having like 1/20 as many people.
I've lived in China for 10 years. In my experience the average Chinese person knows very little about the world outside of China.
I’m really thinking that’s it. The government doesn’t want people to go poking around street view of Taiwan and be like wow why can’t our cities look like that
Edit: wow never been on the end of redddits China keyboard warriors! My DM blew up with nonsense lol
Go to /r/CityPorn, a ton of the posts there are of Chinese cities.
I’ve lived in the U.S, Japan and China and traveled all over the world. Tier 1 cities of China are definitely world class in terms of hardware infrastructure.
I took [this picture myself](https://imgur.com/a/7s8Nkr8), where in Taiwan does it look like that?
Are we talking about the same China? Chinese cities, at least in the immediate visible ways, are modern and well furnished. You can't see political repression and mistreatment of minorities on street view.
What exactly do you think people will be blown away by on street view?
From far away they look sleek and modern. From up close it’s people spitting on the streets, babies taking dumps on the sidewalks, and the same 10 stores on copy and paste. Chinese cities are like American cities in that they all kind of look the same. Taiwans streets are vibrant and modern while at the same time clean and orderly and look organic in growth.
I’ve been to both.
> doesn’t want people to go poking around street view of Taiwan
China is quite literally the number 1 source of international visitors to Taiwan lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan#International_visitors
That hasn't been the case in a while... Chinese tourists can't even get a permit to visit unless they apply from a third country.
Tourist from Korea, Japan, SE Asia, and USA all rank higher than China...
https://admin.taiwan.net.tw/english/info/News?a=1329&id=30559
China's urban design is about as bad as the US's. Lots of highways and towers in the park approaches to density. Their old stuff is good though.
We could catch up to their business districts if we put lots of LEDs on the sides of our towers.
> Lots of highways and towers in the park approaches to density.
True, the old joke about Beijing traffic jam was that if you were driving to the airport you should bring sleeping bag, hot water, instant ramen and diapers.
But on the other hand, they don't neglect public transportation like we do here.
This [gif from Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Shanghai_Metro_evolution.gif) shows how Shanghai's subway evolved.
It's much easier to get around China without owning a car than it is here in the U.S.
Dude Reddit’s pastime is bitching about bad manners of all the Chinese tourists around the world. Millions of Chinese travel around the world each year.
In fact, it’s literally [ranked number 1 in terms of citizens traveling abroad](https://www.unwto.org/news/china-recovers-its-position-as-top-spender-in-2023-as-asia-and-the-pacific-reopens-to-tourism#:~:text=China%20has%20recovered%20its%20position,headed%20by%20the%20United%20States.).
China is also one of the largest market for Western entertainment, from Hollywood movies to K-pop to Japanese anime.
Also Chinese cities look far more impressive in pictures than most other places in the world. You think people live in places like [Shanghai](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Huangpu_Park_20124-Shanghai_%2832208802494%29.jpg/1200px-Huangpu_Park_20124-Shanghai_%2832208802494%29.jpg) or [Shenzhen](https://krui.fm/2016/09/26/travel-around-world-touring-shenzhen-china-part-1/) or [Guangzhou](https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_IN/inspiration/travel/what-to-see-eat-do-guangzhou.html) is gonna be impressed by **satellite images** of other countries?
Don't get me wrong, the Chinese internet censorship is bad and the Great Firewall is absolutely a human rights violation, but I don't think that's the motive for *this particular case*.
Here: Many people calling out a hilariously wrong, yet highly upvoted comment by countering with verifiable hard facts, including sources and citations.
You: everyone who I disagree with is a bot, and every fact I don’t like is propaganda.
I guess this is why some people will always remain ignorant. It’s the same people who stick to Fox News talking points while ignoring reality.
Edit: I was blocked lol. Shame, I was going to ask him to share his personal experience about living in China since he's so confident, which means he must have a lot of first hand experiences, right?
Bro I'm a white dude living in Vermont and even I know they're dead wrong. Countering made up xenophobic bullshit about another country doesn't make me a bot.
> another one that thinks being able to leave the country means your internet and rights ain't.blocked at home.
No one is saying that, read the context dude. But what it *does* mean, is that the government probably doesn't have an reason to block *satellite images* of other places.
Internet censorship exists in China heavily, and I hate the Great Firewall each time I visit and I have to pay for VPN, and it's absolutely a human rights issue and fuck the CCP for that shit.
It just doesn't seem to apply in this particular case if you apply a bit of critical thinking.
And also the most surveilled. China has "Police" stations in other countries to enforce Chinese laws abroad, most of the time illegally. China has one of the worst human rights track records of developed countries, to include active concentration camps for Uighur Muslims. China has an active internet firewall which masks many western sites and even outward-facing Chinese apps like TikTok.
It's more disingenuous to assert China is less like North Korea than more.
That is wild. If you travel to China you’d have a brain aneurysm from cognitive dissonance.
North Koreans barely have enough food, they *wish* they have the problem of internet censorship when most of them have never used internet before.
Meanwhile the Chinese enjoy relative economic freedom in a *developed country* (quoting you) , just without political freedom.
It’s not great when compare to rich western democracies but it’s incomparable to North Korea.
The difference is looking at other countries from within China. They use blurrier images for any country other than China while under the GFW.
There’s no difference with Google Maps for obvious reason.
https://preview.redd.it/m0ja3dsm026d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fbf4e809252f7dea813c0c5898b4608c28b5a9d
Oh I misunderstood your title. You're right! I never noticed. I'm in China. China looks fine, there's no street view, but it's ok. Every other country I looked at is blurry.
That's because of censorship. Their government isn't too far off from North Korea in how they operate information. The only difference being is there is no "work camps" for foreigners.
Holy shit, loads of Chinese government sympathizers here! IDK, maybe that China OWNS North Korea and refuses to fix their problems because they internally sympathize with them?
Apple works with a domestic company for the source supply of map in China, it's only legal to display the map from that company, and that company only has high resolution satellite map of China, the rest of the world is too expensive I guess. I mean it's easy to say China bad, but come on this ain't no government censorship shit
It sort of is, considering the other largest Chinese map providers have zero imagery for countries outside of China.
I’ve checked Gaode and Baidu Maps, both refuse to show any imagery at all when zooming in outside of China, meaning it’s probably not a money issue.
It might not be outright direct censorship like with search results, but I would consider it a form of censorship nonetheless. They could easily allow map providers to source externally for mapping outside of China, but government policies don’t allow so.
https://preview.redd.it/rc5jk5fx5w5d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eddd12eccb9d0573c8c4f12e483c1ef64770b144
(Satellite view on Baidu Maps for reference)
I get your point, calling it purely a cost issue is probably too shortsighted.
Chinese map law is hot garbage anyway, like the infamous coordinate conversion algorithm. I'm totally unsurprised if the gov forbids purchasing foreign map copyrights.
I lived in China for 11 years. All internet originating outside of China goes through so many filters that it was blocked for all practical purposes. It wasn't so bad before Xi Jin Pig took over but those days are over. By the time I left, even VPNs were becoming more trouble than they were worth.
I'm European, living in Hong Kong. I've been to mainland China three times this year. To Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Whatsapp, Insta and co. worked without any problems and without being blocked with a Hong Kong SIM card. No idea...
Apple Map in China uses a local software’s data base called 高德. They company only operates in China therefore doesn't have high res satellite images of anywhere else in the world.
This is just untrue, I use Apple Maps within china all the time. It works just fine. Typical Reddit just objectively lying and getting upvotes because china bad.
This refers to the quality of maps depicting other countries when you access it from within China. Correct me if I’m wrong but I suppose you use it to move around China, thus only accessing local maps.
No. I still look at maps outside of china too from time to time, often when explaining my home to friends here. Apple Maps work just as you would expect. If I turn off my vpn I can zoom into the street level view of my home back in the US just as I could at home. Literally no problem.
Just checked on my Mac and yeah, this post is literally misinformation lmao
For those curious, get a VPN and connect to a Chinese IP address, then click into Maps.
Is your maps using the Chinese source or the international one? Check if there are Chinese characters in the bottom left.
Check your map data providers. AFAIK it’s due to government regulations requiring all imagery to be from Chinese sources.
https://preview.redd.it/k5lzkdgzd36d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44e5905b9dea1c381c6c3ba099e523f2ebadbf19
(What sources for Apple Maps China looks like for me)
If it is the international version, what did you do to get it? I can’t seem to get it working on iOS, even with a VPN and disabling location services. I had to get the screenshots for the post from my Mac, and had to disable location services for it as well.
I’m not sure I bought an iPhone in china, use Apple Maps on my Chinese Telecom SIM card and it works perfectly normal. Just because you’re having connectivity issues don’t spread misinformation. Maybe try and trouble shoot first before jumping to conclusions. Tried it on my girlfriend’s phone too and it works fine and she’s Chinese linked with a ID card.
What do your map data providers say? I've checked with multiple phones, they all show the same thing. [There's someone else in here that also says it's blurry for them](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1dcyvzr/comment/l87q7jy/).
Misinformation can go both ways, so let's try and figure out what's actually going on here.
Also, just to make sure, you are looking at *other countries,* right? China itself is perfectly fine, try zooming in on Vietnam or Canada.
https://preview.redd.it/4nahm7jp0x5d1.jpeg?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf4173cd7c807192cbef36f8f40b06c9c5cf93aa
Oh I know this one. Find this mf’er
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I’ve seen that Greece actually blurs sensitive sites on google maps as well, such as airports and military installations (for obvious reasons) but I spend an unhealthy amount of time on google maps and don’t see this happening anywhere else.
In Greece it's illegal to photograph airports and military installations, which is why they are blurred. A few years ago there was a case of some hobby plane spotters (from the UK I think) being jailed for taking photos at an airport and everyone was like wtf why, and the Greeks were like "People go plane spotting??? Weirdos..."
Also from more years ago, game developers (Bohemia Interactive, guys behind Arma/DayZ) went to Greece to photograph military installations as part of their effort to fully recreate a Greek island and got jail time.
They were there to photograph the entire island iirc, not just military installations. It was the island of Lemnos, inspiration for the ingame Island Altis,
saw it on Google maps in Russia, i will not tell the city because my friend lives there but they say it's a building for making weapons
it must be a google thing because on bing these military bases/airports are not blurred. for example: Koufovouno 41°21′01.5″N 26°25′13″E [google](https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B021'01.5%22N+26%C2%B025'13.0%22E/@41.3506841,26.421,453m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d41.3504167!4d26.4202778?entry=ttu) [bing](https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=41.350822%7E26.421984&lvl=17.3&style=h)
South Korea tried to get Google to do it, but Google refused. In response, Google wasn’t allowed to make their own map, so the military bases are still blurred there
I mean a lot of countries blur out military sites. I know that The Netherlands does it as well. It wouldn't surprise of the majority of countries have things blurred out.
I actually remember looking at the military base in Texel, and it was blurred on Google Maps. However, now that i'm not in the Netherlands anymore, it's not blurred anymore either. So i think some countries just don't want it on their own version of Google maps or something, rather than having Google blur the images out? Really weird either way, and a bit of an asshole move on Google's end
The US doesn't even blur out Area 51. You can even see they have a baseball field there for the Aliens to pass the time. Even Guantanamo Bay Prison is unblurred.
France does the same, even prisons are blurred
Paris have lots of blurred places
The satellite company I worked for back in 2010 had to pixelate imagery of Israel - they couldn't sell 50 centimeter (1 pixel = 50 square cm) resolution imagery of the country. Forget if it was because of the NGA license or an actual US Law. Also forget if it was 1 or 2 meter imagery they were allowed to sell, but it was significantly worse than what the satellites were capable of.
In Belgium they seem to do it as well (at least for military stuff)
They haven’t discovered it yet, you just have to walk there first then hit M. It should clear up in the area you’re walking.
But how are there chinese takeout places in Toronto?
I didn't think the Canadians had this kind of technology. Dear God, help us all.
Maple is to Canada what Vibranium is to Wakanda.
If a Chinese priest caught Apple or Google satellites and they wolololololo those things will turn red
Out of curiosity, I went and looked at Beijing on Apple Maps. The resolution is amazing. At first I thought it was going to be blurry as I was zooming in slowly. It turns out the buildings are ridiculously dense and you really have to zoom in to see the blocks turn into individual buildings. I knew the cities in China were dense, but I didn’t realize how dense. I live in an extremely low population density area, so it was a reality check.
I went to Shangai for work once. On the route from the airport to the center I saw a group of residential high buildings. Makes sense, I thought, it is very densely populated. And then another one. And then another one. Soon it looked like a nightmare. Tall Building after tall building after building. No end in sight.
Tallest building in my town is two stories. *sighs contentedly*
And more is an affront to all that is good. 3 storys max.
Is it your turn with the town's computer today?
No. I have to pedal the bicycle to make the electricity to power it. Dave gets to use the computer today.
That just sounds boring as hell, but to each their own.
Yeah will never live in another city. They suck balls on so many levels.
Well none of you can count past 3, makes sense
Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world (using some measures its the largest) so it's on another level. You get used to it after a while.
> soon it looked like a nightmare It’s no different from cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Hongkong, Singapore, etc. Even [New York](https://images.photowall.com/products/60759/new-york-skyline-5.jpg?h=699&q=85) looks like that. Personally I think living in high rise condos are less “nightmarish” than having a housing crisis or worse, large areas of slums like you see in some other parts of the world. Edit: I took [this photo of Shanghai](https://i.imgur.com/ctCzJOh.jpg), and [this photo of Tokyo](https://i.imgur.com/tZqfrtn.jpg), along with [this picture of Singapore](https://i.imgur.com/ak65ma1.jpg) last year when I spent a year in Asia. To some, those places look like nightmarishly depressing urban jungles. To me *personally*, they were amazingly fun cities that I prefer over any places in the U.S. Everyone has their own preferences. Actually except Singapore, way overpriced (especially since KL is next door and so much cheaper) and the climate, even during December, can only be described as "Satan's asshole".
I'm from Montreal. I'd trade the homeless and junkies pissing in the subway for modern high-rise residential towers any day. "Nightmare," LOL.
São Paulo definitely comes to mind even before NYC
Yeah, I remember the first time I flew into New York. I'd never seen a city from the air that just went on for as far as the eye could see before. Amazing place, definitely would not want to live there, though. Upstate's pretty nice, but the snow gets asshole deep on a camel in the winter.
Modern commie blocks for ya. source: am chinese. it all looks like this. i live on the 23rd floor.
When viewing other countries from inside China, it’s blurry. When viewing other countries from outside China, it’s clear.
The captions on this photo are confusing. At first I thought it meant that if I am in the Apple Maps in America and I am looking inside of China, then the map is blurry. But I’m leaning towards interpreting it as someone who is in China looking at maps of other places in the world. Nevertheless, I am glad I looked at the Apple Maps of China and explore the layout of a few of their cities and just how space maximizing they are.
I’m guessing anyone using an apple in China just gets bad satellite pictures to nudge them toward a Chineae phone if you want good maps.
As someone from a dense city, I had the reverse experience looking at Texas on a Google map. "Oh what an oddly uniform looking neighbourhood" Zooms in "Oh it's a carpark"
ABCD
Did you notice all the odd green/turquoise stuff?
Or the concentration camps?
Seems like a somewhat low density actually. First you have to adjust for lots of unpopulated land in the official definition for Beijing. But even if you only count the built-up area, Beijing still has lower population density than other major capitals like Paris, London, Berlin, Delhi, Lagos, etc. Even NYC has higher density. Beijing is actually comparable in population density to Chicago.
Maybe I was looking in somewhere particularly populated. In that area, it almost looked like all these big block buildings were touching. The roads/sidewalks between the buildings are reallllllly narrow. Compared to somewhere like New York that has sizeable roads and more of an organization on the grid, it *looks* far more crowded in that Beijing Area. I believe the area I’m thinking of was south east of Tiananmen Square.
Beijing has the population of all of Australia, doesn’t it?
China doesn't want its people to spy on other countries ( /s obviously)
China is trying to hide its citizens from seeing all the junkies and homeless on the streets of American and Canadian cities.
It's OK the city of San Francisco already showed how they feel about China compared to its own citizens.
Also anyone notice in satellite view of china (eg Shanghai) the roads don’t line up with the satellite image?
This is true for the whole country. Something about the Chinese mapping system being offset from the rest of the world to "safeguard the security of China's geographic information"
This really reminds me of the shit Soviets used to do.
Almost like they are a communist country or something right?
They are not lmao. Neither was the Soviet union. The state owns a lot of things but economically it pursues a more capitalist way of doing things.
Yeah my former apartment is currently chilling in the middle of a lake according to google maps lol
Yeah, China has an algorithm that arbitrarily offsets all lat/long for some stupid fucking reason not that authoritarian government ever has a good reason for the stuff they do but this is a particularly stupid fucking reason. The only mapping apps that are able to "fix" the data are chinese ones.
And ones that have an agreement with the Chinese government, like Apple. The first party Chinese apps refuse to show any images at all of other countries when you try and zoom in, Apple still provides low res ones though.
Yes, the companies that choose to capitulate to a genocidal authoritarian government also get the cheat code. Do you know the reason that they decide to blur other countries on maps software?
No idea. My best guess is that the Chinese government has some sort of regulation where map images must come from an official Chinese source, but they don’t provide any high res imagery for any country other than themselves. They also disable look around (street view) while you’re in China. Kind of sad that people in China can’t virtually explore the rest of the world on a whim.
Infrastructure is literally seen as a matter of national security and yet here we are giving away our major routes. Great fucking job
Are you under the impression that any country's major routes are a secret? If it's visible from the sky, it's known.
So close....
Nobody tell him about this big wall in China
lol, loser bot
Homie, I got bad news, China has spy satellites as well.
Have you ever heard of an atlas?
Google/Apple Maps isn’t the only map to exist in the world chief
They don't want their citizens knowing about how the rest of the world lives
Knowledge is dangerous for power. It's why certain groups attack education. Dumb people are easier to control.
It’s ironic you posted this comment when you are the one without any knowledge on this. China is literally ranked [world number 1 in terms of citizens going abroad](https://www.unwto.org/news/china-recovers-its-position-as-top-spender-in-2023-as-asia-and-the-pacific-reopens-to-tourism#:~:text=China%20has%20recovered%20its%20position,headed%20by%20the%20United%20States.). Most likely the Chinese people know more about the rest of the world than people in your country. In fact, don’t we all love bitching about bad manners from Chinese tourists or how obnoxious Chinese international students are? So yeah, while internet censorship definitely exists in China, I’m sure the CCP isn't too terrified of people living in [Shenzhen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen) or [Shanghai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai) seeing a *satellite* picture of Kansas lol.
I sincerely agree with you, but I'm still pretty baffled as to why China does stuff like this
What can I say, Chinese bureaucracy sometimes does mysteriously stupid things that itself can’t even explain. You have to remember a lot of people working in the government of China are just dumbass bureaucrats, except they have more power in relative to most Western governments.
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>China is literally ranked world number 1 in terms of citizens going abroad. >Most likely the Chinese people know more about the rest of the world than people in your country. Your logic is a bit off here. According to your spurce, Chinese tourists as a whole spend more than any other nationality, but the percentage of the population who travel is pretty small comparatively. Even just looking at the numbers you provided, UK and German citizens both spend more than half the amount that chinese citizens do, while having like 1/20 as many people. I've lived in China for 10 years. In my experience the average Chinese person knows very little about the world outside of China.
“I love the poorly educated…”
I’m really thinking that’s it. The government doesn’t want people to go poking around street view of Taiwan and be like wow why can’t our cities look like that Edit: wow never been on the end of redddits China keyboard warriors! My DM blew up with nonsense lol
But Chinese people travel a lot. In fact, I think China is the country with the most tourists worldwide.
There are dozens of cities in China that rival the most advanced in the world
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Go to /r/CityPorn, a ton of the posts there are of Chinese cities. I’ve lived in the U.S, Japan and China and traveled all over the world. Tier 1 cities of China are definitely world class in terms of hardware infrastructure. I took [this picture myself](https://imgur.com/a/7s8Nkr8), where in Taiwan does it look like that?
For curiosity, where are you come from? Do you really believe that cities in TW look better than in mainland china?
Are we talking about the same China? Chinese cities, at least in the immediate visible ways, are modern and well furnished. You can't see political repression and mistreatment of minorities on street view. What exactly do you think people will be blown away by on street view?
From far away they look sleek and modern. From up close it’s people spitting on the streets, babies taking dumps on the sidewalks, and the same 10 stores on copy and paste. Chinese cities are like American cities in that they all kind of look the same. Taiwans streets are vibrant and modern while at the same time clean and orderly and look organic in growth. I’ve been to both.
> doesn’t want people to go poking around street view of Taiwan China is quite literally the number 1 source of international visitors to Taiwan lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Taiwan#International_visitors
That hasn't been the case in a while... Chinese tourists can't even get a permit to visit unless they apply from a third country. Tourist from Korea, Japan, SE Asia, and USA all rank higher than China... https://admin.taiwan.net.tw/english/info/News?a=1329&id=30559
You really should google pics of some Chinese cities — North America is getting the urban design shit kicked out of it.
China's urban design is about as bad as the US's. Lots of highways and towers in the park approaches to density. Their old stuff is good though. We could catch up to their business districts if we put lots of LEDs on the sides of our towers.
> Lots of highways and towers in the park approaches to density. True, the old joke about Beijing traffic jam was that if you were driving to the airport you should bring sleeping bag, hot water, instant ramen and diapers. But on the other hand, they don't neglect public transportation like we do here. This [gif from Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Shanghai_Metro_evolution.gif) shows how Shanghai's subway evolved. It's much easier to get around China without owning a car than it is here in the U.S.
Dude Reddit’s pastime is bitching about bad manners of all the Chinese tourists around the world. Millions of Chinese travel around the world each year. In fact, it’s literally [ranked number 1 in terms of citizens traveling abroad](https://www.unwto.org/news/china-recovers-its-position-as-top-spender-in-2023-as-asia-and-the-pacific-reopens-to-tourism#:~:text=China%20has%20recovered%20its%20position,headed%20by%20the%20United%20States.). China is also one of the largest market for Western entertainment, from Hollywood movies to K-pop to Japanese anime. Also Chinese cities look far more impressive in pictures than most other places in the world. You think people live in places like [Shanghai](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Huangpu_Park_20124-Shanghai_%2832208802494%29.jpg/1200px-Huangpu_Park_20124-Shanghai_%2832208802494%29.jpg) or [Shenzhen](https://krui.fm/2016/09/26/travel-around-world-touring-shenzhen-china-part-1/) or [Guangzhou](https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_IN/inspiration/travel/what-to-see-eat-do-guangzhou.html) is gonna be impressed by **satellite images** of other countries? Don't get me wrong, the Chinese internet censorship is bad and the Great Firewall is absolutely a human rights violation, but I don't think that's the motive for *this particular case*.
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Here: Many people calling out a hilariously wrong, yet highly upvoted comment by countering with verifiable hard facts, including sources and citations. You: everyone who I disagree with is a bot, and every fact I don’t like is propaganda. I guess this is why some people will always remain ignorant. It’s the same people who stick to Fox News talking points while ignoring reality. Edit: I was blocked lol. Shame, I was going to ask him to share his personal experience about living in China since he's so confident, which means he must have a lot of first hand experiences, right?
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Bro I'm a white dude living in Vermont and even I know they're dead wrong. Countering made up xenophobic bullshit about another country doesn't make me a bot.
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> another one that thinks being able to leave the country means your internet and rights ain't.blocked at home. No one is saying that, read the context dude. But what it *does* mean, is that the government probably doesn't have an reason to block *satellite images* of other places. Internet censorship exists in China heavily, and I hate the Great Firewall each time I visit and I have to pay for VPN, and it's absolutely a human rights issue and fuck the CCP for that shit. It just doesn't seem to apply in this particular case if you apply a bit of critical thinking.
Take your meds.
And also the most surveilled. China has "Police" stations in other countries to enforce Chinese laws abroad, most of the time illegally. China has one of the worst human rights track records of developed countries, to include active concentration camps for Uighur Muslims. China has an active internet firewall which masks many western sites and even outward-facing Chinese apps like TikTok. It's more disingenuous to assert China is less like North Korea than more.
Most people don't even know we were fighting the Chinese in the Korean War. Edit: see my point
That is wild. If you travel to China you’d have a brain aneurysm from cognitive dissonance. North Koreans barely have enough food, they *wish* they have the problem of internet censorship when most of them have never used internet before. Meanwhile the Chinese enjoy relative economic freedom in a *developed country* (quoting you) , just without political freedom. It’s not great when compare to rich western democracies but it’s incomparable to North Korea.
Yeah definitely, that's why you don't see Chinese tourists literally everywhere. Oh wait.
Blurry for other countries? Your photos seem to indicate that it’s blurry “inside” China. Which is it? Sorry…confused.
When viewing other countries from inside China, it’s blurry. When viewing other countries from outside China, it’s clear.
Is this an internet thing? They have that great firewall
The Great Firewall of China. I heard they’re making a movie about it starring Matt Damon.
You can see it from the moon
Written by Matt Groening, scored by Matt the Cat. Pat the Bat is rumored to be making an undisclosed cameo.
Because God forbid the Chinese government let their people know what other countries look like
...*of* other countries.
The image isn’t showing a map of China, it shows Toronto, Canada. OP is saying from inside China, maps blurs out other countries satellite maps.
Ohh thank you!
You have to squint
Fog of war
My life for Aiur!
I prefer "Marine squad deployed"
I would expect this coming from Japan, not from China.
Why?
I'm curious why you'd expect that. Pretty much the only thing Japan blurs on the internet is porn
Pretty sure that's the joke he was making, lmao
Oh my bad then, I thought it sounded like a serious question
Japan doesn’t shelter its populous from worldly information…what are you talking about?
Must be an apple thing: on Android with google maps there are no differences. Checked it.
The difference is looking at other countries from within China. They use blurrier images for any country other than China while under the GFW. There’s no difference with Google Maps for obvious reason.
Thank you. Thinking is sometimes difficult...
Should try a VPN lol
That’s how I got the before and after image 😉
Are you in China? Cuz I am and mine don’t look like this.
Yeah, I’m currently in China. Try looking at another country outside of China and check if it’s blurry.
You tried with bing maps?
https://preview.redd.it/m0ja3dsm026d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fbf4e809252f7dea813c0c5898b4608c28b5a9d Oh I misunderstood your title. You're right! I never noticed. I'm in China. China looks fine, there's no street view, but it's ok. Every other country I looked at is blurry.
Whatcha hidin Xi?
Toronto, Canada, apparently
Can’t let his citizens find out about Canada!!
That's because of censorship. Their government isn't too far off from North Korea in how they operate information. The only difference being is there is no "work camps" for foreigners.
Who told you this?
Holy shit, loads of Chinese government sympathizers here! IDK, maybe that China OWNS North Korea and refuses to fix their problems because they internally sympathize with them?
What?
Chinese MC need to go that location unlock map. LoL.
You have to explore those areas to clear up the map....
Apple works with a domestic company for the source supply of map in China, it's only legal to display the map from that company, and that company only has high resolution satellite map of China, the rest of the world is too expensive I guess. I mean it's easy to say China bad, but come on this ain't no government censorship shit
It sort of is, considering the other largest Chinese map providers have zero imagery for countries outside of China. I’ve checked Gaode and Baidu Maps, both refuse to show any imagery at all when zooming in outside of China, meaning it’s probably not a money issue. It might not be outright direct censorship like with search results, but I would consider it a form of censorship nonetheless. They could easily allow map providers to source externally for mapping outside of China, but government policies don’t allow so. https://preview.redd.it/rc5jk5fx5w5d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eddd12eccb9d0573c8c4f12e483c1ef64770b144 (Satellite view on Baidu Maps for reference)
I get your point, calling it purely a cost issue is probably too shortsighted. Chinese map law is hot garbage anyway, like the infamous coordinate conversion algorithm. I'm totally unsurprised if the gov forbids purchasing foreign map copyrights.
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Satellite image quality in China itself is fine, it’s just incredibly blurry for any other country.
Yep. I deleted my comment and replied to you in the other thread.
Are you sure that’s not the smog? /s
I am pretty sure it’s so citizen can’t see infrastructure and anything that goes against what they say.
What?
Need to climb all the towers and synchronise
I lived in China for 11 years. All internet originating outside of China goes through so many filters that it was blocked for all practical purposes. It wasn't so bad before Xi Jin Pig took over but those days are over. By the time I left, even VPNs were becoming more trouble than they were worth.
Lived in China back in 2010. I loved it, but with all the shenanigans nowadays, even many fellow sinologists aren't going to (mainland) China anymore.
I'm European, living in Hong Kong. I've been to mainland China three times this year. To Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Whatsapp, Insta and co. worked without any problems and without being blocked with a Hong Kong SIM card. No idea...
CCP be like: "There is nothing to see outside of China. There is nothing out there. There is only the CCP and your supreme leader Winnie The Pooh"
Apple Map in China uses a local software’s data base called 高德. They company only operates in China therefore doesn't have high res satellite images of anywhere else in the world.
This is just untrue, I use Apple Maps within china all the time. It works just fine. Typical Reddit just objectively lying and getting upvotes because china bad.
This refers to the quality of maps depicting other countries when you access it from within China. Correct me if I’m wrong but I suppose you use it to move around China, thus only accessing local maps.
No. I still look at maps outside of china too from time to time, often when explaining my home to friends here. Apple Maps work just as you would expect. If I turn off my vpn I can zoom into the street level view of my home back in the US just as I could at home. Literally no problem.
Just checked on my Mac and yeah, this post is literally misinformation lmao For those curious, get a VPN and connect to a Chinese IP address, then click into Maps.
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Correction. China is a dystopia shithole.
Correction. China is literally Hitler.
Is your maps using the Chinese source or the international one? Check if there are Chinese characters in the bottom left. Check your map data providers. AFAIK it’s due to government regulations requiring all imagery to be from Chinese sources. https://preview.redd.it/k5lzkdgzd36d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44e5905b9dea1c381c6c3ba099e523f2ebadbf19 (What sources for Apple Maps China looks like for me) If it is the international version, what did you do to get it? I can’t seem to get it working on iOS, even with a VPN and disabling location services. I had to get the screenshots for the post from my Mac, and had to disable location services for it as well.
I’m not sure I bought an iPhone in china, use Apple Maps on my Chinese Telecom SIM card and it works perfectly normal. Just because you’re having connectivity issues don’t spread misinformation. Maybe try and trouble shoot first before jumping to conclusions. Tried it on my girlfriend’s phone too and it works fine and she’s Chinese linked with a ID card.
What do your map data providers say? I've checked with multiple phones, they all show the same thing. [There's someone else in here that also says it's blurry for them](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1dcyvzr/comment/l87q7jy/). Misinformation can go both ways, so let's try and figure out what's actually going on here. Also, just to make sure, you are looking at *other countries,* right? China itself is perfectly fine, try zooming in on Vietnam or Canada.
https://preview.redd.it/4nahm7jp0x5d1.jpeg?width=1050&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf4173cd7c807192cbef36f8f40b06c9c5cf93aa Oh I know this one. Find this mf’er
Starlink direct to cell will be a thing within this decade.
Fog of war?
This is just a lie, I have used Apple Maps when I visited China
All that pollution is insane.
Citizen, you do not need that information. Your account has been logged.
They also do that annoying imagery shift to comply with Chinese law, leaving the traces of the roads and other markers off by a few meters.
Chinese communist government obviously controls what their citizens can see, hear and pretty much think.
Nah that's just how it looks
Ah 401, the bane of my existence
Type in Marco and then polo to unlock via cheatcode
Meanwhile on Google maps it is blurry from a far distance then really detailed up close. Although the overlay from the roads is off by a lot