List of satellite map images with missing or unclear data

This is a list of satellite map images with missing or unclear data. Some locations on free, publicly viewable satellite map services have such issues due to having been intentionally digitally obscured or blurred for various reasons of this. For example, Westchester County, New York asked Google to blur potential terrorism targets (such as an amusement park, a beach, and parking lots) from its satellite imagery. There are cases where the censorship of certain sites was subsequently removed. For example, when Google Maps and Google Earth were launched, images of the White House and United States Capitol were blurred out; however, these sites are now uncensored.

Countries engaged with Google Maps

During talks with the Indian government, Google issued a statement saying "Google has been talking and will continue to talk to the Indian government about any security concerns it may have regarding Google Earth." Google agreed to blur images on request of the Indian government.

The Australian government has decided that images of sensitive areas are not a risk, due to poor level of detail. It was reported that in the lead-up to the APEC forum in Sydney held in September 2007 certain key locations in images of the city's central business district, where APEC leaders were meeting, might have been intentionally reduced in resolution; however, Google has indicated that the change was unrelated to APEC, while the NSW police said that they knew nothing about the change in Google's images. It is known that images of Her Majesty's Australian Prisons are intentionally blurred out. Images of the prime minister's official residence, The Lodge have not been blurred. However, images of its roof have been and the entrance to The Lodge is blurred in Google Street View.

The government of Malaysia has stated that it will not ask Google to censor sensitive areas because that would identify the locations it deemed to be sensitive.

List

Most military and defense facilities, along with many private homes, appear blurred in mapping services. The vast majority of Antarctica is also in low resolution due to the bright, often featureless, ice and snow making high-resolution imaging both difficult and largely unnecessary. The following is a partial list of notable known map sections that have been blurred or blanked.

Antarctica

Location	Country	Details	Link and coordinates
	Antarctica	Several large areas of Antarctica are blurred, including one over 14 miles long. Blurring is well past the normal low-resolution for most of the continent.	[1]

Asia

Location	Country	Details	Link and coordinates
The entirety of Israel	Israel	The entire country of Israel is shown in low resolution in all U.S.-based mapping services, including Mapquest, Bing, etc. This is a result of the Kyl–Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997. The amendment is titled "Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel" and requires NOAA's Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs agency to regulate the distribution of zoomed images of Israel.	[2]
Shamsi Airfield	Pakistan	Unmanned Predators. Images from 2006 were removed. Images from 2007 have runway markings removed.	[3]
Garabogazköl	Turkmenistan	The Garabogazköl Basin is shown pixelated in Fourmilab. In all other mapping services, it appears as a normal lagoon.	[4]
Large area north of Mapam Yumco, Tibet, China	China	Unknown.	30°51'20"N 81°39'48"E
Area northwest of Mount Kailash	China	Location is to the northwest of Mount Kailash, one of the holiest Hindu places.	31.219183, 81.223361
Area of Xinjiang re-education camps	China	The area of re-education camps has been partly replaced with plain light gray tiles on Baidu Maps.
Area west of Hilsa resort Nepal	Tibet, China	Location is west of Hilsa resort of Nepal.	30.155970, 81.271169

Europe

Location	Country	Details	Link and coordinates
Fort Eben-Emael – near Eben-Emael	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps	[5]
West Flanders Office – in Bruges	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps	[6]
Belgian Pipeline Organisation – in Leuven	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps - no longer blurred	[7]
Erguemin, Belgium-Netherlands Naval Mine Warfare School – in Ostend	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps	[8]
Chièvres Air Base	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps	[9]
NATO Headquarters – in Brussels	Belgium	Blurred in Google Maps - no longer blurred	[10]
French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA, Grenoble center)	France	Large obscuring pixelation of a 195 ha site near central Grenoble, including the co-located ESRF facility.	[11]
Île Longue	France	Large obscuring pixilation in Google Earth, historic imagery is unobscured. It is the base of the SNLE, the French ballistic missile submarines.	48°18′23″N 4°30′24″W
Office of Atomic Energy (Cadarache Center)	France	Large obscuring pixelation of the whole site.(including the neighboring ITER project)	[12]
HWU transmitter	France	Reduced resolution on most of the image.	[13]
AREVA La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing facility	France	The AREVA La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing facility is shown in reduced resolution.	[14]
Orange-Caritat Air Base	France	The Orange-Caritat Air Base is shown in reduced resolution.	[15]
Cherbourg Naval Base	France	The Cherbourg Naval Base is shown in reduced resolution.	[16]
Vauban Fortifications of Saint-Martin-de-Ré	France	The main fortress is shown in reduced resolution.	[17]
Vélizy – Villacoublay Air Base	France	The Vélizy – Villacoublay Air Base is shown in reduced resolution.	[18]
Toulon arsenal	France	The Toulon arsenal is shown in reduced resolution.	[19]
Istres-Le Tubé Air Base	France	The Air Base is shown in reduced resolution.	[20]
Moronvilliers	France	The ruins of a French village known as Moronvilliers, which was destroyed by German Soldiers during World War I, are blurred on Google Maps. There is Google Street View imagery running right though the censored area. Street view imagery reveals a fenced off military location named "etablissement logistique du commissariat des armées".	[21]
Prison of Riom	France	A prison at Riom is covered by farmland and only a portion of the prison is visible. Visible on Google Maps	[22]
Centre pénitentiaire de Saint-Quentin-Fallavier	France	Blurred in Google Maps	[45]°39'32.6"N 5°07'36.0"E
Baumettes Prison	France	A prison in the city of Marseille is pixelated on satellite imagery. Surrounding Google Street View imagery has partially blurred images of the prison walls.	[23]
Frenchelon	France	A DGSE signal intelligence system in Domme, France that is completely pixelated on satellite imagery.	[24]
Détachement du 8e régiment de transmissions - Vernon	France	Blurred in Google Maps	[25] 49°05'40.4"N 1°30'27.7"E
Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant	France	Blurred in Google Maps and Bing Maps. Clear in Yandex Maps.
Tours military airbase 705	France	Because of their proximity, the civilian airport is wholly blurred as well, in Google Maps and Bing Maps. Clear in Yandex Maps.
Ingolstadt Manching Airport	Germany	No longer blurred on Google Maps. Entire airport blurred out on Bing Maps aerial view.	[26]
Andravida Air Base	Greece	The base's area appears in low resolution on Google Maps.	[27]
Ayioi Anargyroi Military Base Athens	Greece	The base appears pixelated on Google Maps.	[28]
Kos International Airport	Greece	Airport is completely pixelated on Google Maps.	[29] 36°48'02.4"N 27°05'19.7"E
Unknown area near Emporio, Santorini.	Greece	An area north east of the Emporio village in Santorini is pixelated on and only on Google Maps. Google street view runs through the pixelation and multiple photo spheres exist for the area as well.	[30]
Unknown area near Faliraki, Rhodos.	Greece	An area on a hilltop south of Kathara Bay is pixelated on and only on Google Maps, hiding two monasteries. Multiple photo spheres exist for the area.	[31]
Kalymnos Island National Airport	Greece	Airport is completely pixelated on Google Maps.	[32] 36°57'51.0"N 26°56'29.7"E
Kephalonia International Airport	Greece	Completely pixelated on Google Maps, but the perimeter road is accessible on Street View.	[33]
Leros	Greece	Pixelated area on a hilltop in Leros.	[34] 37°08'58.8"N 26°51'05.9"E
Lipsi	Greece	Pixelated area south of bay in Lipsi (Leipsoi).	[35] 37°17'20.6"N 26°45'53.5"E
Port of Mandraki	Greece	The Port of Mandraki on Nisyros is completely pixelated on Google Maps.	[36]
Moria Camp	Greece	The migrant camp appears pixelated on Google Maps, but Google Street View images from the road and more recent photo spheres images from within the camp exist.	[37]
Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia	Greece	The civilian airport and the military hangars adjacent to it are blurred. Additionally, the terrain is glitched on Google Earth.	[38]
Former House of Mandemakers	The Netherlands	The former house of businessman Mandemakers in Kaatsheuvel.	[39]
Polish Military Hydrometeorological Command Centre (Szefostwo Służby Hydrometeorologicznej SZ RP)	Poland	The weather station appears in low resolution on Google Maps, but a high resolution image is available on Bing Maps Aerial view.	[40]
Dowództwo Wojsk Specjalnych	Poland	The Polish Special Forces Command in Krakow, Poland is completely blurred on Google Maps and Wikimapia, but not other mapping websites Bing Maps and Yahoo Maps.	[41]
Ministério da Defesa	Portugal	Defense Ministry Offices Lisbon. Blurry image shown, but data layers are integrated when looking at previous dates.	[42]
Butyn, Russia	Russia	Several buildings in the village Butyn under Moscow are painted with the perfect white color (#FFFFFF).	[43]
Escuadrón de Vigilancia Aérea nº2 (EVA 2)	Spain	Blurred on all online map services.	[44]
Getafe Air Base	Spain	Large parts of runway and taxiways blurred on Google Maps. Completely blurred in Bing.	[44]
Regimiento Estratégico de Transmisiones número 22 (RETES22) "Strategic Signals Regiment number 22"	Spain	Image not consistent with surroundings. Completely blurred in Bing.	[45]
Mando de Transmisiones del Ejército "Army Command Signals"	Spain	Censored in Bing Bird's Eye view.	[46]
"Patio de los Naranjos" (lit. Orange Tree Yard)	Spain	Blurred on Google Maps.	[47]
Pení aerial military base	Spain	Blurred on Google Maps.	[48]
Naval Station Rota	Spain	Blurred on Google, Bing, and Apple Maps.	[49]
Zaragoza Air Base	Spain	Blurred intentionally on Bing Maps. Rendered in lower resolution on Google Maps and Mapquest.	[50][51][52]
National Defence Radio Establishment – West of Stockholm near Drottningholm	Sweden	Facility surrounded partially by woods which is blurred in Bing and Yahoo Maps. Replaced with badly edited overlay of woods in Eniro.se and Hitta.se. Clear in Google Maps.	[53]

North America

Location	Country	Details	Link and coordinates
Western Campeche Bank	Mexico	The Triangulos Chain and Obispo Chain of islands are blacked out in Google Maps. There is no detailed view in Bing Maps.	[54]
Number One Observatory Circle, official residence of the Vice President of the United States	United States	Buildings blurred for various dates in Google Earth. Other years the area lacks any obfuscation.	[55]
2207 Seymour Avenue	United States	The house belonged to Ariel Castro, who was convicted of kidnapping three girls and holding them captive in his home. Ariel Castro committed suicide in his prison cell on September 3, 2013. The house was demolished but the blurred shape of it remains on Google Maps street view.	[56]
Auburn Correctional Facility (maximum security prison), Auburn, New York	United States	Shown as censored, however not in all years.	[57]
Amchitka Island, Alaska	United States	Part of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, part of the island is blurred. It is home to various nuclear tests in the late 50's; Most notably the Long Shot Test. It is expected in 2025 to become a restricted access wildlife preserve.	[58]
5561 NE Ambleside Rd Seattle, WA 98105 Residence of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan	United States	Google's Street View is blurred for this residence. On June 28 2020, protesters marched to the residence of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. The house is blurred on google maps street view due to Jenny's previous work as a District Attorney

South America

Location	Country	Details	Link and coordinates
South Sandwich islands	United Kingdom	In Google Maps, the satellite images of the islands are badly misaligned with their actual locations, by more than a mile in some places.	[59]

External links

• Verboden plekken in Nederland A list in Dutch of 54 blurred locations in the Netherlands under the heading "Onherkenbaar"