Korean Job Discussion Forums

taobenli · Joined: 26 Apr 2004

I can see all the streets in the little podunk town I lived in in southern Japan if I got to google earth or google maps, but Seoul is not even listed. What's the deal? Get with the program, Korea!

eamo · Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

Do you mean Google Streetview hasn't covered Seoul yet? That's true.

cruisemonkey · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject:

Just a wild guess, but - maybe because they're still at war with the PDRK? Wink

Frankly Mr Shankly · Joined: 13 Feb 2008

poet13 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject:

UNless it's been taken down, a few months ago, I spent days poring over detailed parts of the south coast of the country looking for places to live and work. One of those places was an air base in the south of the country.

billybrobby · Joined: 09 Dec 2004

I think he means the roadmaps, not the satellite view. I'll go ahead and give the answer that other dave's esl korea experts would give:

1. xenophobia - don't want foreigners trying to see their streets
2. confucianism - the streets are older than us, so we should respect them by not calling them by their first names
3. saving face - they've got crummy street names and they're trying to hide them

doc_ido · Joined: 03 Sep 2007

This has been annoying me for months, as it makes it harder to geotag photographs. You locate places by typing the Romanised name into the search field, but there are no roads or place names on the map (the satellite images work fine, though) so you kind of have to find things by nearby landmarks.

I have an example screenshot here - nearby Japan and China have cities and roads marked, but not North or South Korea.

I don't think it can be anything to do with the war, as you can get info for places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel with no problems at all. The only other country I know of that has no mapping information is Argentina.

jkelly80 · Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Location: you boys like mexico?

Not supplying maps is part of Korean culture.

bangbayed · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Location: Seoul

You can always crossreference it on Congnamul.com, or just use Congnamul if you just want to get maps and find directions. It's actually better than Google in a lot of ways (bus routes, mapping out bus directions). And you can find addresses on there pretty easily.

sojourner1 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject:

jkelly80 · Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Location: you boys like mexico?

pkang0202 · Joined: 09 Mar 2007

Could it be that it is more Google's fault than Korea's?

Google figured that having a detailed map of Korea and its roads were not worth the investment.

Makes sense. about 1% of the Korean population use Google. No one outside of Korea would give a rats ass where the closest Nene Chicken is. Seriously, if google really wanted to, they could BUY Congnamul outright and have that company make the Korean maps as detailed as possible.

But, in the end it is Korea's fault because they didn't offer that information free to google for the betterment of mankind.

Rolling Eyes

jkelly80 · Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Location: you boys like mexico?

Korea's trying to get global. Google's one of the better ways to do that, even if you don't have an immediate $$$ pay-off from the get go. It's just Korea making itself look hermetic, again.

bangbayed · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Location: Seoul

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

In the last 5 or so years, Korean drivers have practically developed a "live or die" relationship with their car GPS navigation unit. It's almost as if a Korean driver is in panic mode if he/she can't find their navigation unit. Kind of like the cell phone, I wonder how I lived all those years without a cell phone.