Saturday, January 27, 2007

Britain On The Web

Whilst searching for pictures for my previous post I came across this little gem: geograph. The aim of the site is simple, to collect at least one photograph of the main geographical features of every 1km x 1km grid square in the UK ordinance survey maps. So far they have over 300,000 images covering almost 150,000 square km of the UK (or about 62% of the surface area of the UK). Whats cool about the site is that you can search by postcode/placename, or by clickable map and find any photograph taken within that area.

As you would expect most photographs in a given area tend to focus on the same areas, so the grid square for Durham City is of course dominated by pictures of the castle and cathedral. However there is also an attempt to show the real use of areas as well, so the Durham grid square has pictures of the annual miner parade, London has views of gridlocked cars etc.

The question now is whether or not Google already offers this, and if not how long until it does.

1 comment:

CMB said...

Woah! That geograph site is awesome. I just managed to find photos from within 100 meters of all of my more recent three houses.