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This map shows all the countries Google Maps’ Street View missed

Google Maps’ Street View coverage area.
Google Maps’ Street View coverage area.
Google Maps’ Street View coverage area.
Wikimedia

What if you could only see the world through the eyes of Google’s Street View car?

The carpet has a limited travel range

Google Maps Street View cannot show you (all) the world. (Compilation: Disney/Google)

Google has almost every city and town on Earth exquisitely surveyed from a bird’s eye perspective, including suggestions powered by the company’s search engine.

But Street View is a different program. Google’s goal is to take pictures of what things look like, and not just where they are. The photos are taken by a compact car with a very powerful volleyball:

Just kidding, it’s a camera. The car’s photo maps have showered netizens with some of the most visually iconic experiences on the Web, such as the lot-dwelling Norwegian snorkelbros of Hordaland:

Street View is great way to take in daily life in the United States, Europe, and larger Latin American cities. Want to find yourself with Christ the Redeemer? Boom:

But Street View can only show you the world it has itself discovered, and it's missed a good half of the inhabited planet:

There are vast sections of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia yet to documented by the Street View surveyor.

How many countries and people has Google missed? It’s difficult to count heads, but we can start to answer that question by looking at global population density and comparing it with coverage areas.

Below is a rough slider map tool that compares coverage area (a sum of what’s covered above, officially, in blue and light blue) with population density. The map on the left shows you global Street View coverage in blue. The image on the right shows global population density in red.

Oh, the places you won’t go with Street View!

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