Never content to simply stop improving things, Google has now added three more African countries to its Street View application. The announcement of the additions was made via the company’s own blog on February 10. Happily, Street View was also just optimized for mobile in August, as well as having Daydream VR support added November. That means that these new locations can be explored by users both from virtually anywhere and completely virtually
The inclusion Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda in Street View brings the number of African countries included in the virtual exploration tool to seven and the total tally including all countries worldwide to 81. Among the new locales that Google seems most excited about are a UNESCO World Heritage site village called Nzulezo. The village sits atop stilts over Lake Tadane in Ghana and became a world heritage site in the year 2000. The company also added Ghana’s National Theater, which is where the country’s national companies for dance, theater, and orchestra reside. Moving on to Senegal, it is now possible to virtually visit the 160 foot tall African Rennaissance Monument. The bronze monument is located just outside of Dakar, which itself sits along the western coast of the country on the Atlantic Ocean. Aside from the city of Dakar, Google also mentions the addition of several other large towns, landmarks, and the main roads within Senegal. Lastly, the company has added a total of seven national parks in Uganda. These are said to include Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is likely Uganda’s most popular park – with the Ministry of Tourism for the country having previously said that visits to the park make up as many as 42% of all park visits in the country. The park boasts a huge array of birds and 10 species of primate. Many examples of those were likely digitally captured by Google’s Street View teams and Ugandan partners.
Google initially began adding Africa to its Google Street View in 2009, so the latest additions may seem to have been a long time coming for those users who have been wanting to explore other parts of the continent – especially for those who simply don’t have the means to actually go and do it. While using either the standard or virtual reality version of an application like Street view is not likely to ever be as good as the real thing, it is something. So it’s great that Google continues to support Street View with new locations and experiences.
