In February 2012, Google added Moscow and St. Petersburg to their roster of Street View cities, but the major Russian-language search engine, Yandex, beat them to it by a couple of years. In fact, Yandex likely has the largest repository of street-level imagery outside of Google and Bing with coverage in 150 major Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian cities. Here, we can see such sights as the historic museums of Khabarovsk in the far east and historic wooded churches such as this one in the Arctic city of Arkhangelsk.

Of course, if you like good old-fashioned oppressively bleak Soviet-era apartment blocks, you can see plenty of those, too.

Yandex’s coverage also extends into Kazakhstan, where the capital of Astana has seen a massive amount of opulent new construction since it was designated capital in 1997. The sprawling parliament complex, for example, looks pristine. On the opposite end of the capital district, the Khan Shatyr Entertainment Centre was built in 2006 in the form of a giant transparent tent covering a whopping 14 hectares (35 acres).

Yandex also beat Google to the punch in reaching Turkey. Along the Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, we’re able to see both Europe on the left and Asia on the right.

Speaking of Turkey, the website Dunya360 also provides street-level imagery, but only for the Turkish mountain town of Göynük (population 4,900), known for its steep, narrow cobblestone streets.

Also specialising in single-city imagery is iErbil, the major English-language web portal for Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The ultra high-resolution imagery covers numerous locations throughout the city, including the towering statue of the 13th century historian Ibn al-Mustafwi that sits atop city’s historic citadel.

Other major attractions available on iErbil imagery include the 922-year-old Mudhafaria Minaret and the massive gate that welcomes visitors to Shanadar Park (note the tourist tramway in the background).

We end this part of the tour with the Polish site Zumi, which has imagery for the central business district of Poland’s major cities. Among the sights to be seen here are Warsaw’s massive Palace of Culture and Science (the eighth tallest building in the EU) and the sprawling Main Market Square of Krakow. Dating back to the 13th century, it remains the largest mediaeval town square in Europe.

ED: Since this article was submitted just last week, Google have only gone and released imagery in Poland! Insert your own Big Brother joke here.

Locations: Iraq, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Street Views, Structures

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So it’s no surprise that on visiting my local park, Bekonscot Model Village in Buckinghamshire, I was more excited than a 5-year-old let loose in a sweetshop. As I stomped around the 1930s English villages I wondered if I could see the park on Google Earth?

Sadly, the resolution of Bekonscot in Google Earth just isn’t high enough to make out any of the lilliputian houses, trains or airplanes. However, I discovered the village is a founding member of the International Association of Miniature Parks, and many of the other member parks have great resolution.

So, today we are going to explore International Miniature Parks, where we’ll see the best sights on the globe, just smaller and more fuzzy!

Mini Europe

Mini Europe is located in Belgium but features sights from the whole of the European Union including Big Ben, Mount Vesuvius, the Berlin Wall (complete with falling action) and the Eiffel tower (pictured in the thumbnail).

Miniatürk

Miniatürk is a miniature Turkey in the city of Istanbul. In the thumbnail is the miniature version of Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Minimundus

Minimundus in Austria claims to offer the “most beautiful buildings of all 5 continents”. St Peter’s Square is easy to spot and the Opera house is also in there somewhere.

Still in Minimundus, The CN Tower‘s height is being challenged by its neighbour the Eiffel tower, despite being almost twice the size in real life!

Rügen Park

At just 926 km² Rügen (Germany’s largest island) is only 2/3 the size of London, but if that’s just too much area for you to cover you can instead explore the tiny Rügen island at Rügen Park, located on the island of Rügen.

As an added bonus, to the west of the park you will find everywhere else, including the great pyramids, the Whitehouse and, pictured in the centre of the thumbnail, a pre-sinking Titanic.

Sardegna in Miniatura

Another miniature island within itself is Sardegna in Miniatura, which reproduces the Italian island of Sardinia.

Swiss Miniatur

Swiss Miniatur aims to “summarise Switzerland” in miniature form. Clearest in the Google Earth image is the Swiss Alps, located in the north-east of the park.

Italia in Miniatura

Back to Italy, Italia in Miniatura is located on a man-made island in the shape of Italy (of course), and features the country’s most famous landmarks. Look to the north of the mini-country and again you can just about make out the white peaks of the Alps.

Despite being a mini-Italy, they also have special section for a mini Eiffel tower. The resolution is too poor to make it out, but you’ve probably seen it enough already!

The rest…

For completeness, the other members of the International Association of Miniature Parks not featured today are the low-resolution Mini Israel, Miniatuur Walcheren, Pueblo Chico, Klein Erzgebirge, Miniature World, Catalunya in Miniatura, Pirenarium, and the previously featured excellent resolution Madurodam.

Further information on all the parks is available on the group website and Wikipedia has a large list of miniature parks which features many more.

Locations: Austria, Belgium, England, Germany, Italy, Turkey / Categories: Buildings, Crowds, Theme Parks

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Despite a period of abuse by hoteliers and tourists, this has been a popular destination for those seeking to utilise the supposed medicinal properties of the waters ever since the ancient city of Hierapolis was founded on top of the white cliffs by the Phrygian Greeks, probably in the first half of the third century BC.

Hierapolis became part of the Roman empire around 190 BC, and the Hellenistic city was slowly transformed into a Roman town – complete with two Roman baths, a gymnasium, several temples, a main street with a colonnade and a fountain at the hot spring. Eventually Hierapolis became one of the most prominent cities in the Roman empire in terms of the arts, philosophy and trade, and consequently it grew to be wealthy – and at the height of its popularity, home to 100,000 inhabitants.

In 60 AD an earthquake destroyed the town’s theatre, so a new one was built into the hillside, and in the 1534, another earthquake destroyed the remains of the ancient city, and the ruins were slowly covered with a thick layer of limestone.

Today the whole town is undergoing extensive reconstruction, and the theatre is the centre of the activity, which remains to this day as one of the finest examples of original Roman theatre decoration.

Read more about Pamukkale and Hierapolis at Wikipedia, check out some fantastic ground level shots at Flickr, or you can even read a great description of many of the features of Hierapolis at The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites.

Thanks to Tom Heisey, Simon Cope and Jane Turnbull.

Locations: Turkey / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Natural Landmarks, Stadiums and Sport

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Thanks to Max and Lauri Kangas.

Locations: Turkey / Categories: Bridges

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