Above is Estadio Lluís Sitjar in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Built in 1945, for over half a century the 18,000 seat stadium was the home of football club RCD Mallorca. The stadium has sat unused since 2007, but the word ‘Mallorca‘ can still be plainly seen spelled out in the seats. The field of play, however, is already in a sad state.

On another populous Spanish island, Gran Canaria, lies Estadio Insular, which was the home of UD Las Palmas. Built in the same year as Lluís Sitjar, the 21,000 seater was abandoned four years earlier. Grass and trees are already rooting themselves in the stands, and the walls are covered in graffiti.

Stade des Charmilles in Geneva was the site of five FIFA World Cup games in 1954. Much of the facility was dismantled in 2002 and the field is completely barren, but the grandstands remain in place. In the rival city of Zurich, the demolished Hardturm also hosted World Cup games. Satellite imagery shows the shells of the grandstand are still intact, and Street View shows the rubble surrounding it.

In Germany, Gelsenkirchen’s Parkstadion was the home of the Bundesliga’s Schalke 04 from 1973 to 2001. Since then, about one-half of the seating has been removed, but the rest remains.

The largest abandoned stadium seen on Google Maps is the Estadio Fonte Nova in Salvador, Brazil. Originally built to a capacity of 66,080, the stadium was expanded to a monstrous 110,000 seats in 1971. Tragedy struck Fonte Nova in 2007, when an upper terrace collapsed during a Third Division championship final, killing seven spectators and injuring forty. The stadium was immediately closed. Since this imagery was captured, Fonte Nova has been demolished.

At one point the largest arena in the Czech Republic, Brno’s Stadion Za Lužánkami has sat in state for the past decade. Not only is the old playing field easy to make out, but even the goalposts are still standing. Around the edges, though, trees up to 3 metres high have sprouted in the bleachers.

Not all abandoned stadiums are left to rot. The Dell, the former home of English side Southampton, was redeveloped as a housing estate after its 2001 closure. Not only does the estate retain the shape of the original stadium, but all of the apartment blocks are named for famous Saints players.

Naturally, there aren’t only modern abandoned arenas to be found on Google Maps. The Plaza de Toros in Cartagena, Spain has been abandoned for nearly a century. Built on top of an ancient Roman arena, the location is set to be the home of a new Roman museum. Over in Merida, this ancient amphitheatre dates all the way back to 25 BC. The gladiator pit is exposed in the middle of the arena.

We end the first part of our tour in South Africa, where in Cape Town, Greenpoint Stadium was torn down to make way for the neighbouring Cape Town Stadium in advance of the 2010 World Cup¹. Here we see demolition crews working to dismantle the arena. The north grandstand, however, remains standing.

Read part two of our abandoned stadium tour: Abandoned Stadiums of the United States.

Locations: Brazil, Czech Republic, England, Germany, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland / Categories: Abandoned, Stadiums and Sport

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The Street View car has come fairly close to several fires over the years, and many remain to be seen – such as this sidewalk garbage fire in a Marseilles underpass which has filled the air with acrid black smoke, or this small roadside brush fire midway between Cardiff and Newport, Wales.

In Sao Paulo, this petrol station is nearly obscured completely by the smoke from a car fire.

The most inflammatory encounters for the Street View car, however, may be these large roadside fires in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa and Chiapas, Mexico.

I wonder if they’ve tried putting these fires out with the world’s largest fire hydrant? Then again, it probably wouldn’t help, seeing as how as it’s located over in Columbia, South Carolina. Besides, the Street View Car in general has bad luck with hydrants.

Fortunately, there are usually emergency workers on the case. Here in Wiesbaden, Germany, an upper-level house fire is being attended to by a number of fire trucks.

At Philadelphia International Airport, this burned-out husk of an airplane sits in a paved circle. The helpless victim of firefighter training, it joins its comrade at Florida’s MacDill Air Force Base.¹

This small brush fire on the North Island of New Zealand was likely set deliberately as part of the annual process of getting the land ready for the season’s planting, and this field fire in Bulgaria is also deliberate. This other brush fire in Botswana captured by the National Geographic African Megaflyover Project, however, appears to be far more dangerous.

Then there are full-on forest fires. In the wilderness of the Northwest Territories, this forest fire is caught in the heat of the moment, sending a giant plume of smoke into the air that can be seen over 20 miles (30 km) away.

Just as ominous is this massive fire in the far east of Russia, seen here blazing a path toward the Pacific Ocean.

What’s worse than an out-of-control wildfire? Try three, as captured here in Cameroon.

Finally, here’s the Street View car getting incredibly meta, as it takes a picture of someone taking a picture of a fire along the South African coast.

Locations: Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Florida, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Northwest Territories, Pennsylvania, Russia, South Africa, South Carolina, Wales / Categories: Aircraft, Natural Landmarks, Other Vehicles, Street Views

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The original plan was to house 500,000 people along the curved ‘wings’ of the Pilot Plan, bisected by a road named the Rodoviárian Axis. Each block is designated for residential, commercial, or institutional use relative to the block’s position along the axis. Each residential block is well-treed and surrounded by parks.

The ‘body’ of the aeroplane is formed by the Monumental Axis, holder of the Guinness World Record for the street with the largest central reservation (median). You can get an idea of just how wide the Monumental Axis is by looking at where the Rodoviárian Axis crosses it; the city’s central transit terminal lies on top.

Along the Monumental Axis lie the major government buildings and major cultural facilities. The ultra-modernist National Museum and Metropolitan Cathedral¹ lie just to the west of the monolithic Mall of Ministries², identical skyscrapers that house the various government offices.

City Park is a popular destination, replete with a large artificial pond stocked with fish. The meticulously laid-out giant circle at the west end of the park is the city’s massive cemetery.

Brasília’s National Stadium will be one of the host venues for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, with another 26,000 seats to be added to its current 45,200.

Brasília also has neighbourhoods set aside strictly for foreign embassies, most of which look more like vacation estates than government offices. However even those pale in comparison to the Presidential Palace, which fits right in with the vacation resorts located next door on Lake Paranóa (take that, White House!).

Lake Paranóa is an artificial lake created both as a reservoir and as a playground; the lake is surrounded by upper-class housing. Despite living adjacent to a lake, planners apparently found it necessary to place a swimming pool in every single garden.

As Brazilians flocked to the new capital, Brasília quickly exceeded its intended population. Today, the Federal District holds nearly three million people, and numerous suburbs have grown up around the city. Not all of them are as upscale as the original city. A crowded neighbourhood built for workers constructing the Presidential Palace still remains nearby. On the west side of the Federal District, the low-income satellite city of Ceilândia was laid out in haphazard strips.

As Google expands its Brazilian Street View coverage over time, the monumental buildings of the capital will definitely require a revisit!

There’s more about Brasília at Wikipedia.

Locations: Brazil / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Natural Landmarks, Stadiums and Sport, Structures, World Heritage Sites

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Perhaps it’s this man, who’s called Cabrito (or so his sign says). We presume he works for Google, but can’t find him on LinkedIn. Is there a hidden message in the sign?

This is Kermit the Frog, we’re pretty sure he doesn’t work for Google. Why is he there? Is it another secret message?

Or is it these two guys, standing away from the main group? The image held by the man on the left is a QR code, a 2D barcode format that was originally made popular in Japan for printed weblinks, and is now used on Google’s Favourite Places program. It must contain a secret message!

You can get apps for most mobile phones that will read the QR code and automatically direct you to the link contained. Sadly, due to the uneven paper on our Googler’s sign, we are unable to read the QR code from the street view image.

However, using sophisticated image reconstruction techniques¹, we can exclusively reveal the original QR code, and the secret message contained within, which is…

“Google Geo Engineering”

Oh.

Is that it?

Locations: Brazil / Categories: Street Views

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As it’s Google Sightseeing’s Fifth Annual Island Week, Google have kindly added a small amount of Street View for the tiny island known as “Half Moon” in Antarctica¹, where we can marvel at a huddle of wild penguins!

The second new addition is far-reaching coverage for the large island of Ireland, with over 80,000km of road covered.

Lastly, we have Street View images for Brazil, which I doubt you’ll believe is also an island? Instead, consider this: Woo-Yeah! Carnival time!

Spotted anything funny or odd on the new Street View images? Let us know either via the form or with a tweet.

Locations: Antarctica, Brazil, Ireland / Categories: Street Views

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We’ve previously covered Very Large Buddhas (which were seriously large), so now it’s time to seek out which is the largest Christ statue in the entire world!

Cristo de la Concordia, Bolivia

In Cochabamba, Bolivia we find the Cristo de la Concordia a 33.8m high statue (including 6.2m base), which makes it the third largest Christ in the world. One interesting feature of this monument is that you can climb up the stairs inside his chest, and get an excellent view of the city by way of reward.

Christ the Redeemer, Brazil

Possibly the best recognised of all the statues of Christ in the entire world, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil stands 709 m above sea level and measures in at 38 metres tall (including an 8m pedestal). The monument was inaugurated in 1931, and currently receives over two million tourists every year.

Christ the King, Colombia

Located 1,440 m above sea level and weighing in at around 464 tonnes, Christ the King, in Cali Colombia is a seemingly modest 41m, but is considered the largest representation of Jesus Christ in the world¹. The figure was completed in 1953, and at night the view is pretty impressive.

Cristo-Rei de Almada, Portugal

Now we’re talking! The world’s tallest Jesus Christ is surely the Cristo-Rei de Almada in Portugal, as it’s 110 metres tall! Unfortunately this is only the case if we include the height of the base – if not then it’s only a paltry 28m! Completed in 1959 it is of course an important religious and conventional tourist location.

Christ of Copoya, Mexico

Our last Christ is of truly epic proportions. The Christ of Copoya in the Mexican state of Chiapas began its construction in 2006, and when finished will top out a truly enormous 62 metres tall, which will make it the largest figure of Christ in the entire world. At least for a while

Finally, I recommend you also take an aerial tour of the Cristo del Otero in Palencia Spain, the Cristo de las Noas in Coahuila, Cristo del Cubilete in Guanajuato and the Cristo de la Habana.

Locations: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Portugal / Categories: Monuments, Shadows

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Although it is more than 40,000km long, there are surprisingly few towns along the line – much of its length consists of ocean, and on land it crosses large expanses of tropical rainforest.

We start our journey, appropriately enough, in the country named after its location: Ecuador. Perhaps the best known monument marking the equator is Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World), just outside the capital, Quito. These days, GPS-laden tourists are often alarmed to find that the true zero line appears to be 240 metres north of the line on the ground.

It’s all a question of which map datum¹ you use: The Global Positioning System, along with most online maps, uses the WGS84 datum. So, in the same way that the Greenwich meridian is 100 metres or so away from GPS 0° longitude, the GPS equator (shown in red below) is somewhat north of the Mitad del Mundo line (in blue).

Just to the northeast of the offical Mitad del Mundo monument is a small private museum called Inti-Ñan, which claims to be on the “real” equator. It is, but only on an older datum called SAD69 (shown in yellow). Your GPS won’t read zero until you walk into the main road outside.

Heading eastwards through Ecuador, we soon come to the highest point on the equator, and the only place on the line with permanent snow cover: Volcán Cayambe. The summit, just inside the northern hemisphere, is 5,790 metres above sea level; the highest point on the equator itself is some 1,100 metres lower.

On the other side of South America, in the city of Macapá in Brazil, we find a football² stadium supposedly built right on the equator, with one half of the pitch in each hemisphere. This is the Estádio Milton Corrêa, better known as the Zerão (“Big Zero”), and it’s only slightly marred by the fact that the WGS84 equator actually runs just past the southern end of the pitch. A little way to the east, along Avenida Equatorial, is a monument known as Marco Zero.

Next we cross the Atlantic to Africa. A popular tourist stop in Kenya is this layby on the outskirts of Nanyuki, where a sign (arrowed) marks the location of the equator. In this case it’s pretty accurate, being just 20 metres or so south of the WGS84 line. You can usually find enterprising locals here willing, for a few shillings, to “demonstrate” how water flows down the plughole in opposite directions either side of the line. However, it’s an urban myth and the demonstration is all down to sleight of hand.

Our last location is in Indonesia, in Pontianak on the island of Borneo. Built in 1990, the Equator Monument is a replica of the marker first erected in the 1920s by Dutch surveyors. It’s five times the size of the original, but again it’s disappointing to note that it is 120 metres too far north, according to GPS.

One final Google oddity – if you search for the location “0,0″, then as you’d expect you get a placemark at the intersection of the equator and the Greenwich meridian, off the coast of west Africa. What’s more unexpected is the address that is given: 23208 Glenbrook St, St Clair Shores, Michigan. Is this unassuming neighbourhood the real centre of the universe?

Locations: Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya / Categories: Monuments, Weirdness

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However, in the small English town of Happisburgh that process is being reversed, as the waves tear apart the coast and drag the land away into the North sea.

The rate of erosion is so fast that houses are being abandoned as they fall into the sea, and homes that once boasted a long garden up to the sea edge now hang precariously over it.

In 1959, work began to build sea defences along the edge of Beach Road to stop the tide eroding the cliff. As you can see, the defences had all but disappeared by the early 90s and in some places Beach Road now lies over 80m into the sea.

It’s a similar story near the small Brazilian city of São João da Barra, where high temperatures have accelerated coastal erosion and 183 buildings have fallen to the sea in the last 30 years.

The most recent building to be lost at Atafona beach is this high rise which just yesterday it finally gave up the struggle and collapsed. Local news broadcast a video clip of the building falling.

There’s more history and pictures of Happisburgh on the official website and pictures of Atafona and the fallen building on Flickr.

Thanks to Rob and Leo Carbonell.

Locations: Brazil, England / Categories: Buildings

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Goodyear have built more than 300 blimps over the years and today there are three which officially share the “Goodyear blimp” name.

The “Spirit of America” has been California’s blimp since 2002 and has a full-time crew of 18, which covers pilots, engineers, cameramen, etc.

The ‘Spirit of Innovation‘, seen here flying over its hometown of Pompano Beach, Florida, was named last year in a web-based public poll (and that was the best they could come up with?).

The third of the fleet, ‘Spirit of Goodyear’ sadly can’t be seen on Google Earth as yet. However, worldwide there’s at least another 3 blimps with the Goodyear emblem.

In Brazil, flying over the city of Sao Paulo, is ‘Spirit of the Americas‘.

And roaming around Europe somewhere are two blimps, both called “Spirit of Europe“. Here’s one of them, parked in a English airbase.

On a slightly related note, can you guess which company produces the most tyres annually. Goodyear? Michelin? Pirelli? All wrong: the correct answer is LEGO, who produce 306 million tiny tyres each year

More Goodyear blimp info on the Official Website, Wikipedia and MyAirship.com

Thanks: JosieNorden and Virtual Globetrotting.

Locations: Brazil, California, England, Florida / Categories: Aircraft

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Anyway, I haven’t got the slightest clue why somebody went to all this effort. Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks to whoever these guys got this location from in the first place (they seem to have a bad habit of neglecting to include any attribution you see).

Locations: Brazil / Categories: Large Type, Watercraft

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