Google Street View in Europe

Development

Early on, soon following the original introduction of Street View in the United States, there was talk of bringing the feature to Europe as well, but there were concerns over the legality of the feature due to stricter laws in most European countries than those of the United States regarding photography.

The first views anywhere outside the United States were introduced on July 2, 2008, when the Tour de France route was added. Nineteen camera icons, each indicating part of a French city or town and Cuneo, Italy, were included.

On October 14, 2008, camera icons were introduced in six French cities, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris and Toulouse. At the same time, all other icons that had been introduced in France on July 2, as well as the one in Cuneo, Italy, were removed, representing the first time in Street View's history that a camera icon that once marked a place was removed. However, the amount of coverage that France had since July 2 was not diminished.

On October 27, 2008, four Spanish metropolitan areas were added to the list of growing street view locations in Europe: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.

On October 29, 2008, Italy received four camera icons for the localities of Florence, Milan, Rome and Lake Como.

On March 18, 2009, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were added. In the case of Great Britain, only major centres were uploaded and even coverage of those city centres was incomplete. For example, Edinburgh was missing Street View images of two of its key thoroughfares: Princes Street and the Royal Mile (although portions of both were visible from adjoining streets that had been imaged).

In May 2009, Google Germany released a list of German cities that were to be scanned or rescanned in May and June 2009.

On August 18, 2009, areas in Switzerland and Portugal were added.

On October 7, 2009, parts of the Czech Republic were added.

On November 9, 2009, more locations in the Netherlands and Spain were added.

On December 2, 2009, more locations in France and Italy were added as well as various tourist sites in England.

On January 20, 2010, Sweden and Denmark were added, as well as more locations in the United Kingdom, Italy (7 regions are fully covered), Portugal, the Czech Republic (mostly Prague), and the Netherlands.

On February 9, 2010, Norway and Finland were added, with coverage of much of southern Norway and most of Finland. Imagery was updated for parts of the UK as well.

On March 11, 2010, 95% of the United Kingdom's roads, both rural and urban, covering a total of approximately 238,000 miles, were added. More locations in the Netherlands were also added.

On April 15, 2010, some major UK theme parks were added including Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures, and Legoland Windsor, as well as the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth.

In May 2010, Google Street View Cars and Trikes were seen in Croatian cities and towns such as Pula, Split, Dubrovnik, and the capital, Zagreb. This brings a Street View September dream to both Croatia and Andorra available.

In August 2010, Google Street View Cars were photographing Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney as well as Slovakia. Also, ten Street View cars were delivered to the Latvian capital Riga.

On September 30, 2010, the Republic of Ireland was added.

On December 8, 2010, parts of Romania were added. More locations in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway were also added.

On February 1, 2011, Street Views were added of several art museums across Europe, including the Palace of Versailles, the State Hermitage Museum, the Uffizi Gallery and Tate Britain.

In October 2011, the Bernina Railway between St. Moritz and Tirano was photographed and was added to Street View in early 2012. Bernina Railway is part of the Rhaetian Railway and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On November 23, 2011, Street View became available for almost all of Belgium. While Street View content had been recorded earlier, privacy issues kept Google from making it available to the public.

On February 22, 2012, Street View became available for 3 major cities in Russia: St. Petersburg, Moscow, and small parts of Kazan. Museum views were made available in Russia in 2011 for St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum and Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery. Street Views of Piotrkowska Street in Łódź, Poland were also released.

On March 21, 2012, Street View became available in Poland for most major cities and landmarks.

On April 19, 2012, 5 Ukrainian cities were added: Donets'k, Lviv, Kharkiv, Kiev, and Odessa.

On May 14, 2012, Estonia and Latvia were added. Nearby Lithuania is currently being photographed.

On September 26, 2012, Croatia and Andorra were added.

On October 30, 2012, Slovakia was added.

On January 31, 2013, Lithuania was added.

On March 8, 2013, Bulgaria and most major cities of Russia were added.

On April 23, 2013, Hungary was added. The Kaliningrad Oblast exclave of Russia was also added and almost all places in Poland and Romania, except for the major cities added earlier.

On October 10, 2013, Iceland was added.

On November 15, 2013, Venice was added, with photographs taken by backpackers and gondolas.

On January 29, 2014 Slovenia and even more areas of Russia were added.

On June 5, 2014, Greece was added.

On July 23, 2014, Serbia was added, with coverage of the three largest cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš).

Timeline of introductions

Note: Nearly all locations in Europe are available in high quality view.

Areas included

Reference:

Andorra

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Austria

Some indoor museum and garden (Volksgarten and Schönbrunn) views in Vienna. Ski pistes at the Sölden and Ischgl resorts, Österreichring race track.

Belgium

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Bulgaria

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Croatia

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Czech Republic

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Denmark

Most towns, cities, villages, and major roads. Several small rural roads are missing in many parts of the country.

The Faroe Islands have no coverage, but Greenland has some, described in Google Street View in North America.

Estonia

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Finland

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

France

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Greece

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Hungary

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Iceland

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Ireland

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Italy

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Liechtenstein

The Zollstrasse bridge is covered along 70 meters in Liechtenstein.

Latvia

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Lithuania

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Luxembourg

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Macedonia

Major towns and roads

Monaco

Whole country

Montenegro

Major towns and roads

Netherlands

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Norway

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Some snowmobile views in Svalbard, including a 200+ km return trip between Longyearbyen and Pyramiden

Poland

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Portugal

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads.

Romania

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

San Marino

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Slovakia

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Slovenia

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Spain

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Ceuta and Melilla have no coverage.

Sweden

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Turkey

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads. See Google Street View in Asia#.C2.A0Turkey.

Switzerland

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads. Many small gaps in residential areas.

Ukraine

Most towns, cities, major roads, some villages and rural roads.

United Kingdom

Most towns, cities, villages, major and rural roads

Including Gibraltar and Jersey. For overseas territories see articles about other continents.

Controversy

Street View has been controversial in different countries for various reasons.

In September 2010, the Czech Republic banned any further capturing of Street View images. This occurred after more than half a year of unsuccessful negotiation between the Czech Republic and Google. However, on June 24, 2011 the cars started driving again, with the camera holder lowered by 30 centimeters for privacy reasons.

In November 2010, a British watchdog group said that Google broke the law by obtaining personal data from people. The British government said the company would not be fined for the breach.

In March 2011, legal action against Google Street View in Germany resulted in court ruling that the project is legal; however, Google later decided not to expand or update existing coverage of Germany by the service.

In April 2011, a temporary ban on Google Street View data collecting in Austria was lifted, after being imposed by national data protection agency in May 2010. Google announced it was satisfied with the decision, but also stated that it had no plans to offer Google Street View coverage in Austria in the foreseeable future.

In April 2013 Google was fined €145,000 for illegally recording information from unsecured wireless networks in Germany.

There is some criticism of privacy concerns as well.

Countries to be added in the future

 Austria,  Belarus,  Bosnia & Herzegovina,  Cyprus,  Kosovo,  Liechtenstein,  Malta,  Moldova.