Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Massive Google Earth Update Provides Evidence of Scottish Giants

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Monday, 2nd March 2009

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Over the weekend Google rolled out another major image update to Google Earth. Frank at the GEarth Blog is tracking the updates, and has so far spotted changes all over the place!

Scotland, China, Africa, South Korea, Mongolia, Iceland, Sweden, France, Norway, Turkey, Brazil, Bangladesh, Italy, Uruguay, Qatar, Canada, England, Argentina, Maldives, Greenland, Mexico, and the US states of Wisconsin and South Dakota.

Not too far from the GSS Scottish HQ, the new imagery has revealed this set of giant footprints, one of which appears to have become a rather effective van trap.

Update: Twitter user Mantolwen, who sent us this link, actually went along there today and took some photos of the footprints, as they’re still clearly visible. Thanks Mantolwen!

Elsewhere in Scotland we can see the some superb images of the previously featured Falkirk Wheel, which is appearing on Google Earth for the first time, and I also found my own car!1

Not all of the images are of improved quality however – presumably because more up-to-date images are the thing desired by your regular Google Earther.

However, GEarth Blog also reports that there has been a whole slew of new historical imagery added in this update, covering even more of the globe than the new updated images.2

So what new sights can you find near you?

Thanks to Frank at the Google Earth Blog and @Mantolwen on Twitter for the giant feet!


  1. No, I’m not linking to it! Not because of any privacy concerns though, but simply because my car is too crappy to let you see it. 

  2. However as I see it this wouldn’t be very hard – under Google’s new system, simply adding new imagery on top of old imagery must create as much historical imagery as you’ve just added new imagery, right? 

2 Responses to 'Massive Google Earth Update Provides Evidence of Scottish Giants'

  1. Petra says:

    Christchurch, New Zealand was recently updated. Quality no better, you still can’t see people in the Christchurch imagery – it’s been like that for years. Plus now there are some white puffy clouds obscuring parts of the city whereas previously there weren’t. Makes me wonder why they bother really.

  2. Shawn says:

    Here’s to hoping google Canal view comes up so we can see a closeup of the bridge in action on google maps.

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