The Headline Says It All

A recent article in the Washington Post had the headline:

The less Americans know about Ukraine's location,

the more they want U.S. to intervene

Their data showed that only one in six Americans knew where the Ukraine was, and while many guesses were at least in the neighbourhood, many were laughably far away, as shown in their map.

Read the whole article in The Washington Post,

Google Maps Covers North Korea

At the end of January, Google unveiled a new more detailed map of North Korea including detailed features like monuments, landmarks, and prison camps.  Assembled with the help of citizen cartographers it's a great leap forward in open information availability about this secretive nation.  The Washington Post did a great job of presenting the difference visually in this article.  Play with the slider for some real fun.

National Geographic published a comparison between their own map and Google's, in their article advising caution about maps created by amateurs.  Of course the comparison between the Google and National Geographic maps is not totally fair, because Google's detail is only revealed when you zoom in.  So what do you think is the value of having this information out there, even if there are some inaccuracies?  Do you think that the act of publishing will yield a deluge of feedback to improve the maps?