Google says its Street View imagery now covers 10 million miles

Launched in the US in 2007, Google's Street View project has been mapping out everything from roads to ski slopes in the years since, and just reached a major milestone – 10 million miles of captured footage.

That's enough to stretch around the Earth more than 400 times in a distinctive Street View car, Google told CNET. It's the first time the tech giant has released any hard data on the scale of Street View.

Besides photographing roads, Street View has expanded down footpaths, inside buildings, up mountains, and even to the International Space Station. All this imagery gets refreshed every few years too.

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"Imagery is at the core of everything we do," Ethan Russell, a director of product at Google Maps, told CNET. "We think of it as the foundation of the entire map-making process."

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The landmark of 10 million Street View miles is perhaps less impressive for those who think Google already has too much data and information on us on file – though it does undoubtedly make getting around easier.

One of the ways Google now uses Street View is to power augmented reality walking directions: if GPS is proving too unreliable, Google Maps can work out where you are by cross-referencing Street View pictures.

Apple now has its own Street View feature, called Look Around, which made its debut in iOS 13 this year. However, it's still limited to select parts of the United States.

Google also told CNET that its Google Earth satellite imagery covers 98 percent of the inhabited world – that's about 36 million square miles, if you're keeping count.