Asia

Potala Palace, Tibet

This is the huge Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, which used to be the winter residence of the Dalai Lama (the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people), until the current 14th Dalai Lama fled in 1959 following a…

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Tuesday, 12th August 2008

Olympics 2008: National Aquatics Centre (The Water Cube)

This is the brilliantly bizarre-looking National Aquatics Centre, which is better known as The Water Cube. The building is perhaps best described as resembling some sort of “bubble cake”, and when it’s lit up, it looks pretty incredible. During the…

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Monday, 11th August 2008

Olympics 2008: Beijing National Stadium (The Bird’s Nest)

Unless you’ve been hiding under a very large rock, you’re probably aware that today sees the start of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Held in Beijing, China, the celebrations begin at precisely 8pm local time, 8/8/08. This is a date…

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Friday, 8th August 2008

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

On this day, August 6, in 1945 – the first nuclear weapon to be used in war was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb, Little Boy, was released at 8:15 local time by the American B-29 bomber…

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Wednesday, 6th August 2008

Street View for Australia and Japan

Much to the annoyance of the tinfoil-hat privacy nuts, Street View’s spread across the globe continues with two launches today: Japan and Australia! Japan has coverage in the following cities: Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Saitama, Chiba, Sendai, Sapporo, Hakodate, Kyoto and…

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Monday, 4th August 2008

Wobbly Bridge

No, not that one – this cutting-edge bridge is in Japan, and it really is seriously wobbly! It’s virtually serrated by virtue of its cutting-edge wibbly-wobblyness. It’s so wobbly in fact, that it’s only accessible to specially-built, hand-customised “wobbly vehicles”,…

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Monday, 4th August 2008

Welcome to Google Sightseeing

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. Our team of authors present weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

Could you be one of our authors? We're looking for more freelance writers - please get in touch for more information.

Best of Google Sightseeing

Sivash: The Rotten Sea

Sivash is the shallow system of lagoons that separates Crimea from mainland Ukraine. Home to large-scale salt deposits, Sivash may just contain the most colourful waters to be found in Google Maps, with ponds of blue, beige and organe readily visible.

Robben Island

Robben Island is a prison island off Capetown, South Africa, best known as the jail where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated…

Revisiting Area 51

Whether it’s space aliens, light-speed travelling spaceships, or just some top-secret government testing, the world’s most famous “secret place” has…

Top Ten Northernmost Items on Google Maps

Here at Google Sightseeing, our obsession with superlatives knows no bounds, whether it be the largest, the smallest, the funniest, or the strangest. Join us as we literally go in another direction with our look at ten items that have the right to be called the northernmost such things on Earth!

Top 5 Worst Traffic Cities in the World

Nobody likes traffic. The frequent starts and stops just to roll another few feet can grind away at anyone’s mind.…

World’s Tallest Lighthouses

For centuries lighthouses have served as navigation aids, helping protect marine traffic from running aground on dangerous coastlines, rocks and…

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