Google Street View in Asia


In Asia, Google Street View is available in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey. It is also available for a few select tourist attractions in the People's Republic of China and Pakistan.

Timeline of introductions

Service in Japan was introduced on August 4, 2008. Japan's coverage was initially concentrated in five areas with a total of 10 camera icons. The service has faced criticisms from bloggers in Japan of cultural insensitivity.
On May 26, 2011, Google announced that, in India, capturing of Street View images in Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka, had started. However, Google Street View was banned from Bangalore on June 20, 2011.
On September 2, 2011, Google has revealed that its Street View feature will be introduced to the country in association with the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
On September 3, 2011, Google started to collaborate with Tourism Malaysia to record Malaysian locations to be featured on its Google Map Street View.
On January 24, 2012, Google Street View was launched in South Korea starting with imagery from the country's capital, Seoul, as well as South Korea's second largest city, Busan.
Google Street View in Jordan was launched in November 2015 which included 43 archaeological sites. On the announcement day, Queen Rania wrote on the announcement and praised tourism enhancing efforts in Jordan.

Areas included

Reference:

For security reasons, the government of India prohibits Street View photography from roadways. Railways, however, are excluded in this prohibition, and both the Kalka-Shimla Railway and Nilgiri Mountain Railway have Street View coverage of their entire track length using cameras mounted on flatcars. Additionally, private persons have uploaded numerous panoramic photos of tourist and other sites of note to Google Maps.
RegionMajor cities/areas
Andhra PradeshAmaravati, Visakhapatnam
TelanganaHyderabad
BiharSasaram, Nalanda, Vikramashila
DelhiNew Delhi
Uttar PradeshAgra
GujaratAhmedabad, Halol, Patan,Dholavira
KarnatakaManipal, Bangalore, Pattadakal, Mysore Palace, Mysore Zoo
OdishaKonark, Bhubaneswar
Madhya PradeshGwalior, Vidisha, Khajuraho
MaharashtraMumbai
PunjabJalandhar, Amritsar
RajasthanJaipur
Tamil NaduVillupuram District
Uttar PradeshLucknow

Covers most regencies and cities in Sumatra, Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Borneo, Sulawesi.
RegionMajor cities/areas
SumatraAll major road, town and cities covered by Trans-Sumatran Highway, Nias Island, Bangka Belitung Islands, Batam, Bintan Island, Bengkalis
JavaFull coverage
Lesser Sunda IslandsFull coverage in Bali and Lombok
All major road and towns in Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores, Sumba, Lembata, Alor Island, Timor
KalimantanAll major road, town and cities covered by Trans Kalimantan Highway and Tarakan Island
SulawesiAll major road, town and cities covered by Trans-Sulawesi Highway, Muna Island, Buton

RegionMajor cities/areas
Northern DistrictKfar Kama, Kibbutz Merhavia
Haifa DistrictHaifa, Nahsholim
Tel Aviv DistrictTel Aviv, Ramat Gan Safari
Jerusalem DistrictJerusalem, Mini Israel, Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, Israel Museum
Southern DistrictBen-Gurion University of the Negev

Full Coverage
RegionMajor cities/areas
ChūbuNiigata, Sado, Nagoya, Gifu
ChūgokuOkayama, Hiroshima
HokkaidōSapporo, Hakodate, Asahikawa
KansaiKobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara
KantōChiba, Saitama, Tokyo, Yokohama
KyūshūFukuoka, Nagasaki, Hirado, Kumamoto, Tanegashima, Yakushima, Amami Ōshima, Tokunoshima, Okinawa, Miyako Islands, Kagoshima
TōhokuSendai, Fukushima, Morioka

For European Russia, see Google Street View in Europe

Area colombo
All major roads and most other roads.

Full Coverage
RegionMajor cities/areas
Northern TaiwanTaipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, Hsinchu County
Central TaiwanTaichung City, Changhua County
Southern TaiwanChiayi County, Chiayi City, Tainan City, Kaohsiung City, Pingtung County
Eastern TaiwanIlan County, Hualien County, Taitung County

Controversy

As in other places, there has been controversy surrounding plans to bring Street View to various Asian countries.
In Israel, there have been concerns that introducing the service could increase the risk of terrorism to which the region is prone.
In India, the Government rejected Google Street View. Official sources said the rejection came after a detailed analysis by security agencies and defense forces which feel that allowing Google to cover India would compromise country’s security interest. Security establishments became wary of allowing such image capturing given that planning for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai is believed to have involved photographic reconnaissance of targets by Pakistani American David Coleman Headley. The Indian Government had plans to talk about Google street view in India, but in March 2018 Government of India finally rejected the Google Street view plan citing that this will compromise the country's security as India is constantly targeted by terrorist groups from Pakistan, especially in the Kashmir valley.
Google had to reshoot all images in Japan because the camera cars that took the original photographs were originally too high, leading to privacy concerns. Japanese houses are generally built quite close to the road. Roads are also narrow, often without pavements. Such factors led to privacy concerns with the original photographs.
Police in South Korea raided offices in that country in order to determine if Street View was legal.
In 2013, people in Tambon Sa-iap village, Song District in Phrae Province, Thailand, mistakenly believed that the Street View car was surveying the village for the unwanted Kaeng Suea Ten Dam project and blocked it, not allowing it to take photographs. They also arrested the driver and interrogated him to determine if he was working for the dam project. He was released after swearing on the Buddha that his work was not related to the dam project. After confirming his story, the village's leaders apologized for the misunderstanding.