Web over India's map

India is in it's 60th year OF INDEPENDENCE. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It is the worlds most diverse country. There have been several wars that we have fought with our neighbours like PAKISTAN & CHINA over the years.


I was checking my visitors at Google Analytical in "Map Overlay". Map overlay is a feature that lets me know how many visitors I had per country on a map. If you click on a particular country on the map it takes you to that country and it show the visitor of that country ,city wise (see the pic below).



I had seen the map of India at Google analytical several times but didn't pay any notice to it. Today when i was looking at it i suddenly found out that India -Pak border was not properly displayed. Even India-china border was not proper. It shows POK as part of Pakistan this could be allowed as it's administered by PAK. Even the Aksai Chin plateau area is not properly displayed.These are disputed areas that either countries claim it to be theirs. This map shows these regions as PAK's and China's respectively. SO does it means that Google takes Pak's and China's side. No Google is far better than.

Before we head into reading you need to know a bit of facts
CHINA dispute from wikipedia(read full story)
China and India share a long border, sectioned into three stretches by the states of Nepal and Bhutan, which follows the Himalayan mountains between Burma and Pakistan. A number of disputed regions lie along this border: at its western end is the Aksai Chin region, which is an area the size of Switzerland that sits between the Chinese regions of Xizang (Tibet) and Xinjiang (Sinkiang). The eastern border, between Burma and Bhutan, comprises the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North East Frontier Agency). Both of these regions were overrun by China in the 1962 conflict/war.

PAK dispute from winkipedia(Read full story)
The disputed territory POK is claimed by both India and Pakistan, but controlled by Pakistan. It is administratively divided into three parts:
Azad Kashmir
The Northern Areas, consisting of the regions of Gilgit and Baltistan. Gilgit was an agency leased by the Maharaja to British Government. Baltistan was western district of Ladakh province which was annexed by Pakistan in 1948. Both regions of Gilgit and Baltistan are administered as a de facto "Federal Territory" of Pakistan by a Pakistani minister. As the area is part of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region, the local population is denied the right to vote or send representatives to the Pakistani parliament or senate;
A part of Hunza-Gilgit called Raskam and the Shaksgam Valley of Baltistan region, ceded by Pakistan to the People's Republic of China in 1963 pending settlement of the dispute over Kashmir. This ceded area is also known as the Trans-Karakoram Tract.
These territories border the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the east and Pakistan to the west.


I decided to do some research as to what did other sites show. I decided to visit only those sites that specialise in this field i.e either encyclopedia or map sites.


I visited

• maps.google.com
• maps.yahoo.com
• mappoint.msn.com
• mapquest.com
• wikimapia.org
• britannica.com

I first headed over to Maps.google.com Owned by Google.This showed the correct map. The disputed regions were shown in dotted lines and that's fair enough. Another area which China claimed i.e Arunacjal pradesh(just next to butan) is shown in dotted lines although it's now Indian state. To tell you the truth google powered maps( i dont mean alalytical like sites) were the only site that site that showed correct map . So thumbs Up for Google Maps


You can view the full map over here



Next i went to Yahoo Maps. They had launched several new features.This made the site load too slow. It took me almost 2-3 min to zoom into that level.But finally i got it. Here the story was quiet different. Aksai Chin plateau area was shown separately. POK was shown as Pakistani. They have shown the Aksai Chin plateau as a separate country i.e it's represent by the same line as that of a country. So yahoo maps sucks



Just check Map of india at Yahoo Maps





Next stop was Microsoft's virtual earth aka Msn map.This was bit better than Yahoo. This showed POK as pak region but the plaetue is shown as a disputed region. It's shown with dotted line unlike yahoo.They even showed Arunachal pradesh also in dotted lines although it's an Indian state.


See the complete map at Msn Virtual Earth


I also tryied out AOL'S mapquest. This site turned out to be much like Microsoft . There was only one change the border b/w POK and India was shown in dotted line.




At Wikipedia's map(wikimapia) everything perfectly fine as it was powered by Google. This was much much of a physical map but showed everything correctly.



Check out full map Over Here

My Final destination was Britannica this as expected showed the right map. See the map


Just reminder that Google Analytical only gives us details regarding our site and not about the worlds. It has to show these region as part of one country or other or else it would lead in to problem. If there are visitors from these region what would Google do. Several such disputed regions exist in the world.It has to cant show them separately as it's of no use or importance to a webmaster. It only that we Indians have been unlucky and these regions have been excluded from India.



But sites like Yahoo, Msn and others should show the right map.