3 ms·

Ever Notice How Often the Cities on Google Maps Change?

34 points by j053003 17y ago

thibaut_barrere 17y ago
It may be a side effect of scaling. That's just an assumption. The algorithm used to determine what will be displayed and to ensure that names will not overlap may also not be deterministic, or not completely. Meta-balls kind of computations can typically generate a different output based on where you start to aggregate stuff. Given the need to handle this at a very large scale, one could imagine that different machines are doing their map/reduce thingy on their own, and that the first responding would be taken into account first, etc.
randomwalker 17y ago
My guess would be that they are experimenting with the algorithm used to determine which cities are prominent enough to display on the map. As for why it changes so often, perhaps they are not changing the algorithm itself but just fiddling with the parameters in an automated fashion for A/B testing?
- rivo 17y ago
  Maybe they're not even experimenting. Maybe when you change something in one place (e.g. adding a landmark), it affects the layout of a whole lot of other places, too.
  - newson_db 17y ago
    Except for that there are no landmarks shown on any of the examples. Looking at the maps, nothing is changing except for the cities and the placement of the highway labels. The adding and switching of the different cities does seem completely arbitrary.
- shib71 17y ago
  It may be dependent on recent usage and search patterns. The standard search is influenced by 'hot' content, so why not maps?
csytan 17y ago
Could be that the most accessed (zoomed in) cities are shown in the overview map.
andyking 17y ago
The language of the place names seems fairly arbitrary too. I've noticed them switch a few times from English to Welsh and back in Wales - Caerdydd instead of Cardiff, Pen-y-bont for Bridgend. Something similar happened to Ireland for a few weeks last year, too. For some reason, Gaelic seems to be excluded from this; I haven't seen Steòrnabhagh yet! The centring of the map has changed, too - when they first put up the map of the UK, zooming in from the default location would bring you right into the centre of my town. Now it's in the Irish Sea.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Do you speak Gaelic? This is something I don't understand, living as I do in Wales. Stornoway, say, is the name of the place? If that is the name then for a Gaelic person the name should be "Stornoway" (or I'd accept a transliteration) and not something that is pronounced differently, no? When I speak to a Russian I don't change my name to Па́вел, it's my name. I can understand to some extent people in another country applying a different name, or applying a different pronounciation of the same word (eg Paris), but I don't understand why you'd translate a name. /rant
  - PieSquared 17y ago
    But people do translate names. Since you're Russian, I'll give this example: What do English speakers call a Саша? Why, usually, it's not Sasha - it's Alex.
  - cracki 17y ago
    don't overthink it. in germany, the state is called Bayern, even though it's "Bavaria" in english. same thing with my current town: it's called "Aachen" in german, but "aix-la-chapelle" in english or "aken" in dutch.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      Bayern vs Bavaria is not translation. Presumably it's a historic transliteration that has mutated over time. Aachen and Aken are clearly related by transliteration, fine, same name written using different sounds. Aix-la-Chapelle again is not a translation. Round here a place gets called Bridgend, that's the original name. Close to 100% of the population speak English. Those that don't tend not to speak Welsh either. The name gets translated as Pen-y-bont (end of bridge) as if it were simply a description not a name. Then all the modern vocab is taken from English and most speakers in the South use a mix including English language words; yet for some reason nearly all the names have to be translated? It gets worse as most of the natives can't pronounce the Welsh version of their own town names correctly. /rantingmyassoffboyoisntit
wedesoft 17y ago
Many map vendors put small mistakes in their maps to make proving theft easy. Changing the layout maybe prevents others from obtaining a consistent set of map tiles by slowly downloading them.
davidw 17y ago
For a while, there were a lot of 'ditches' marked on the terrain map of the US. That was some sort of glitch, though, I'm sure. Also, I'm curious to see how long it takes them to update this: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Via+Monte+Venda,+3,+35143+Padova+Padua,+Veneto,+Italy&ll=45.420018,11.872975&spn=0.003008,0.008224&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Via+Monte+... That overpass is now complete and operational, as of a month or two ago.
brfox 17y ago
Notice how the labels never overlap? This includes the highway labels. I bet they just randomly start placing labels and once you have a few of them on the map, then there is no way to have the same labels all the time... especially if the edges of the view are slightly different than when it was accessed before.

34 points by j053003 17y ago

It may be a side effect of scaling. That's just an assumption. The algorithm used to determine what will be displayed and to ensure that names will not overlap may also not be deterministic, or not completely. Meta-balls kind of computations can typically generate a different output based on where you start to aggregate stuff. Given the need to handle this at a very large scale, one could imagine that different machines are doing their map/reduce thingy on their own, and that the first responding would be taken into account first, etc.

randomwalker 17y ago

My guess would be that they are experimenting with the algorithm used to determine which cities are prominent enough to display on the map. As for why it changes so often, perhaps they are not changing the algorithm itself but just fiddling with the parameters in an automated fashion for A/B testing?

rivo 17y ago
Maybe they're not even experimenting. Maybe when you change something in one place (e.g. adding a landmark), it affects the layout of a whole lot of other places, too.
- newson_db 17y ago
  Except for that there are no landmarks shown on any of the examples. Looking at the maps, nothing is changing except for the cities and the placement of the highway labels. The adding and switching of the different cities does seem completely arbitrary.
shib71 17y ago
It may be dependent on recent usage and search patterns. The standard search is influenced by 'hot' content, so why not maps?

csytan 17y ago

Could be that the most accessed (zoomed in) cities are shown in the overview map.

andyking 17y ago

The language of the place names seems fairly arbitrary too. I've noticed them switch a few times from English to Welsh and back in Wales - Caerdydd instead of Cardiff, Pen-y-bont for Bridgend. Something similar happened to Ireland for a few weeks last year, too. For some reason, Gaelic seems to be excluded from this; I haven't seen Steòrnabhagh yet! The centring of the map has changed, too - when they first put up the map of the UK, zooming in from the default location would bring you right into the centre of my town. Now it's in the Irish Sea.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Do you speak Gaelic? This is something I don't understand, living as I do in Wales. Stornoway, say, is the name of the place? If that is the name then for a Gaelic person the name should be "Stornoway" (or I'd accept a transliteration) and not something that is pronounced differently, no? When I speak to a Russian I don't change my name to Па́вел, it's my name. I can understand to some extent people in another country applying a different name, or applying a different pronounciation of the same word (eg Paris), but I don't understand why you'd translate a name. /rant
- PieSquared 17y ago
  But people do translate names. Since you're Russian, I'll give this example: What do English speakers call a Саша? Why, usually, it's not Sasha - it's Alex.
- cracki 17y ago
  don't overthink it. in germany, the state is called Bayern, even though it's "Bavaria" in english. same thing with my current town: it's called "Aachen" in german, but "aix-la-chapelle" in english or "aken" in dutch.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Bayern vs Bavaria is not translation. Presumably it's a historic transliteration that has mutated over time. Aachen and Aken are clearly related by transliteration, fine, same name written using different sounds. Aix-la-Chapelle again is not a translation. Round here a place gets called Bridgend, that's the original name. Close to 100% of the population speak English. Those that don't tend not to speak Welsh either. The name gets translated as Pen-y-bont (end of bridge) as if it were simply a description not a name. Then all the modern vocab is taken from English and most speakers in the South use a mix including English language words; yet for some reason nearly all the names have to be translated? It gets worse as most of the natives can't pronounce the Welsh version of their own town names correctly. /rantingmyassoffboyoisntit

wedesoft 17y ago

Many map vendors put small mistakes in their maps to make proving theft easy. Changing the layout maybe prevents others from obtaining a consistent set of map tiles by slowly downloading them.

davidw 17y ago

For a while, there were a lot of 'ditches' marked on the terrain map of the US. That was some sort of glitch, though, I'm sure. Also, I'm curious to see how long it takes them to update this: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Via+Monte+Venda,+3,+35143+Padova+Padua,+Veneto,+Italy&ll=45.420018,11.872975&spn=0.003008,0.008224&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Via+Monte+... That overpass is now complete and operational, as of a month or two ago.

brfox 17y ago

Notice how the labels never overlap? This includes the highway labels. I bet they just randomly start placing labels and once you have a few of them on the map, then there is no way to have the same labels all the time... especially if the edges of the view are slightly different than when it was accessed before.