The Politics of Google Maps

The online cartographic authority, Google Maps has the unenviable task of drawing borders across the most hotly contested territories on earth. Sometimes the company riles border disputes. “Rather than produce one definitive map of the world, Google offers multiple interpretations of the earth’s geography. Sometimes, this takes the form of customized maps that cater to the beliefs of one nation or another. More often, though, Google is simply an agnostic cartographer—a peddler of ‘place browsers’ that contain a multitude of views instead of univocal, authoritative, traditional maps. Ironically, it is that very approach to mapping, one that is indecisive rather than domineering, that has embroiled Google in some of the globe’s hottest geopolitical conflicts.”