Taiwan was the eighth-most searched country on Google’s Street View over the past 12 months, the US technology company said on Tuesday.
Google last week marked the 15th anniversary of its map service, which allows users to view street-level images.
Data from May last year to last month showed that Taiwan and Taipei both ranked eighth among the most searched countries and cities respectively, Google said in an article posted on its blog related to services in Taiwan.
Indonesia was the most-searched country during the period, followed by the US, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Italy, while the most search city was Jakarta, followed by Tokyo, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, New York and Istanbul, Google said.
Following the launch of Street View in 2007, which at first covered only five US cities, Google began taking pictures along the streets in Taiwan in 2008, before the service was expanded to cover Taipei in 2009, the company said.
To mark the anniversary, Google said it is expanding a Street View feature called Time Machine, which can be used on desktop computers and mobile devices using Android or iOS operating systems.
First introduced in 2014, the feature provides users with past images of a spot taken at different times, so they can “travel back in time” to as early as 2007, Google said.
The company also published a list of the 25 most-searched Street View spots in Taiwan, with two 7-Eleven stores — in Changhua County’s Lukang Township (鹿港) and Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武) — taking the top and fifth places respectively.
Other popular spots on the list include the Baishatun Gongtian Temple in Miaoli County (6th), Taipei 101 (17th), Hanshin Arena Shopping Plaza in Kaohsiung (20th) and the Fuzhong MRT station in New Taipei City (25th).
The most searched places in Taiwan also include railway stations in Taichung (3rd), Taoyuan (9th), Hsinchu (11th), Kaohsiung (12th), Jhongli (13th), Tainan (16th) and Taipei Main Station (24th).
Globally, the most searched spot was the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, followed by the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Taj Mahal in India, Google said.
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