Shhh. ...Street View Arrives in Belgium

There seems to be a little error in Google Maps that shows two Street View images in one street in Belgium.

This means that a few houses in Strijphout Straat in Genk are lucky enough to have their homes featured on Google Maps. The rest of Belgium will just have to wait for the official release of Street View in their country. The fact that Google already seems to have gathered the imagery means that they probably won't have to wait too long.

Back in July of last year Google made a similar error in the Street View imagery for the town of Rijssen in the Netherlands. Instead of showing the Dutch town some of the imagery actually showed the German town of Marl. That error also displayed some Street View in a country before the official release.


Hat-tip: Google Earth Blog

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Belgium Votes to Demolish Royal Palace

Le Batiment Le Plus Laid de Belgique

Here is a really cool Google Map from Belgium demolition company Jan Stallaert. The map let users submit and vote on the ugliest buildings in Belgium. Jan Stallaert promised to demolish the winning building with glee.

However Pascal Laureyn from Belgeoblog tells me that the competition didn't exactly go as planned. Instead of voting for Belgium's ugliest buildings many users just voted for the building that they most wanted to see destroyed. Popular buildings to be demolished were the Royal Palace, the headquarters of Belgium's political parties and the stadiums of a number of football teams.

This is a great first story from Google Maps Mania new Belgium contributor Belgeoblog.

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Google Maps & Mashups Blog for Belgium

Belgeoblog
Belgeoblog is an excellent source for information and news about Google Maps and Google Earth related developments in Belgium. The blog also has a number of interesting Google Maps mashups.

Typisch Belgisch

Typisch Belgisch is a collection of interesting Belgium satellite views from Google Maps. The views are categorised into a number of categories, 'Special Attractions', 'Useless Work', 'Flying Objects', Military' and 'Photogenic Phenomena'.

Brussels in 1953

This map displays a collection of historical photographs of Brussels. Most of the photos are from 1953, but the map also contains a number of older photographs of the city.

Brussels Metro Map
A map that shows the Metro lines of Brussels.

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Exploring Belgium on Google Maps

Recreax

Recreax is a new interactive travel and recreation guide that uses Google Maps to show user recommendations. Anyone can upload information about their recreation, leisure or travel activities to the site, including multimedia content, such as photos and video.

Users can upload information about any location in the world but at the moment the site is most active in Belgium. The map should centre automatically on your current location. To view the current uploaded points of interest just centre the map on Belgium. The map markers are categorised into a number of categories, e.g nightlife, attractions, markets etc. The site is also available in three languages, Dutch, French and English.


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