Are your country borders correct? Google draws borders on its maps, depending on who looks at them

It seems that Google is trying to satisfy all parties regarding the drawing of borders in the application of its maps, as it has been observed that they change the drawing of the borders of some countries depending on who looks at those maps.

For more than seventy years, India and Pakistan have been fighting for control of the mountainous Kashmir region, and during that time thousands have been killed in the conflict between the two sides.

But with every country claiming the region belongs to it, the web browser in India may be excused when it is believed that the conflict has been completely settled as it has borders on Google Maps that Kashmir is completely under Indian control. But anywhere else in the world, the borders of the region appear with dashed lines, in recognition of their disputed status.

The Washington Central newspaper, which reported the news on its website, says that Google's mission is to "organize the world's information," according to Google, but it also bends to its desires. From Argentina to the United Kingdom to Iran, the borders of the world look different depending on where you see them, because Google - and other online map makers - simply changes it.

With about 80% of the mobile map market share and a billion users, Google Maps has a major impact on people's perception of the world, from driving directions to restaurant reviews to naming attractions to separating wars in historical borders.

Google's decision-making about maps is influenced not only by history and local laws, but also by the whims of diplomats, policymakers and their executives, people familiar with the matter say to the Washington Post who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss the company's internal operations.

But Google Ethan Russell's product manager, Maps, says, "Our goal has always been to provide maps as comprehensive and accurate as possible based on basic facts."

"We are still neutral on issues of disputed territories and borders, and we make every effort to objectively display the conflict on our maps using a dashed gray border. In countries where we have local versions of Google Maps," she added in a statement. , We follow local legislation when displaying names and borders. "

An example of the duplication of borders that appear in Google Maps depending on where the user sees the map of the Kingdom of Morocco, where the border includes scenes inside Morocco, the disputed Western Sahara region, but from outside Morocco a dashed line appears separating Morocco from the Western Sahara region.

Another example is the Crimea, where scenes from inside Russia see the peninsula separated by a continuous line from Ukraine which suggests that it is under Russian control, but the viewer of the map from Ukraine or any other country will see the Crimea separated by a dotted line from Ukraine in the sense that it is a disputed area .

It is noteworthy that Apple - in what appears to be a result of pressure from Moscow - re-reviewed its maps last year to show the Crimea a region that belongs to Russia when looking at the map from inside Russia.

This change angered European officials who condemned Russia's annexation of the peninsula, and Ukraine considered that this act legitimizes what it described as "the illegal occupation of the Crimean peninsula by the Russian Federation". She demanded that Apple and others tell the world that she was forced to make the changes and condemn them.

Users browse Google maps more than a billion times a week, according to the newspaper, and this shows how much influence they have in shaping people's perception, as they represent the largest source of geographic information and the first place they go when they want to locate a location.

An example of this effect is what Google raised about four years ago when Palestinian journalists condemned Google's “survey” of Palestine from its maps, but Google used to draw a dashed line around the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the entire map being named “Israel”, and the same thing Apple Maps does Ping maps for Microsoft, except that ping maps show the word Palestine over the West Bank.