World News

Google Maps Directions Now Available in N. Korea

Planning a North Korean roadtrip?

You’re in luck — for the first time, Google Maps allows users to calculate driving and walking directions throughout one of the world’s most isolated countries.

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[fragment number=1]Google first started mapping the country on its popular service in 2013 — even enlisting citizen cartographers to help the tech giant map the notoriously reclusive country — but only started offering turn-by-turn directions to users this month.

The system isn’t perfect: it can only rely on roads known to Google and can’t provide directions to areas outside of the country’s closed borders. Plus, its utility is pretty limited in a country with few private cars and virtually no Internet access.

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Drawbacks in mind, though: the maps provide some of the closest looks of the country’s infrastructure available to outsiders today.

[h/t North Korea Tech Blog]

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