According to Google, the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal in India are the three most visited sites in the world via Google Street View, which is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its famous geographic visualization tool.
Indonesia is ahead of the United States and Japan in the top 10 of the most visited countries, France ranks ninth, Spain and Italy surpass Europe.
In France, the list of the ten most visited places in the last twelve months is a statue in the seaside resort of Saint-Brevin les Pins (Loire-Atlantique), behind the Eiffel Tower, the Ocean Serpent.
Designed by artist Huang Yong Ping, it depicts a long sea snake skeleton.
It was a 360° photo posted by an Internet user that enabled Google Street View to offer this virtual tour.
Google hasn’t been able to explain why the trip was so successful with Internet users, beyond the Louvre Museum, the Arc de Triomphe or Disneyland Paris.
The latest of the virtual tour is that of Invalides in Paris, which was launched to celebrate the service’s 15th anniversary.
Google Street View was launched in 2007 at the initiative of the co-founder of the American conglomerate Larry Page.
The first location discovered by Photo Car, a van from a security service borrowed for the occasion, is Google’s California campus.
The service arrived in France in 2008 as part of a partnership with the Tour de France, which allows Internet users to view the routes taken by runners.
“In metropolitan France, we have almost all roads and avenues today,” geographer Gilles Davidovich said during a news conference.
In total, Google Street View claims to have stored 220 billion images and traveled over 16 million kilometers across a hundred different countries.
Shooting systems with cameras, lidar (laser telemetry), GPS and calculation equipment have evolved over time. Google hopes to have a complete system weighing less than seven kilos next year that can be carried by hand if needed.
Because cars aren’t the only vehicles used by Google Street View cameras.
Depending on the places to visit, we used backpacks, boats, scooters, bicycles, snowmobiles and even a camel.