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Google Maps Now Cover Whole World
GregBryant writes "They haven't blogged it yet, but maps.google.com has added some additional scaling-out, and maps of the entire world are available. Only country names so far (except in the US, Canada & UK) but it's still nice to finally click back & forth between the Satellite imagery and some real maps, even if their proportions don't quite match."
Getting satellite views of physiographic features from a readily available source is truly one of the best things to come from the internet. The only downside to the Google satellite images is that the highest resolution images cover metropolitian areas. This is great for folks who use it for urban planning, environmental impact assessments, historic studies, etc., it doesn't do much for geologists or geographers. Still, it is free.....
As a geologist it is nice to have aerial tools on line, especially when some of the other taxpayer funded sources of data have been taken offline by private companies. While I don't object to paying for data produced by private companies, I get a bit steamed with the idea that I have to pay *twice* for government-generated data. I understand the necessity to save the taxpayers money, but in the case of topographic, DEM, and DLG sources generated by the government, we have already paid for most of the cost of production; hosting is a fraction of cost for agencies such as the USGS.
Even if hosting were a significant cost, paid advertising could cover the cost and provide a good income for any company interested in providing the service for the government. The fees that some of these charge for taxpayer-subsidized data is rediculous.
Thanks again to Google.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I still can't find area 51! dang.
Why do i have to be so lazy?
Now what are we supposed to complain about? How can you hate google when you keep doing things you want them to? Bastards.
If I zoom in to a certain magnification, the labels of Belgium and the Netherlands are switched.. if I zoom further in, it's correct.. I do wonder what plans google has with their expansion to europe..
Can't wait till the whole world is available. I think it'll mean Google will dominate the mapping industry, but, it's the best thing out there.
Blog: orange haired boy
If Atlantis isn't on Google Maps then how will the Stargate guy know where to go without getting lost??????
(These are the questions that prevent me from obtaining employment. I don't think it's the economy, the more that I think about it).
You could always do this in Civ as soon as you build Apollo world wonder....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Getting all the country names and rough maps is a good first step for WORLD DOMINATION!
air and light and time and space
Interesting how you can see the whole world three times at the farthest zoom...
Would you have believed it if someone had come to you ten years ago and said that in 2005 you can do that on the net for free?
The owls are not what they seem
Japan isn't there yet, apparently... Here's tokyo... zooming in one more level on sattellite-view or two more levels on map-view results in blank data. ("we're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region"). I think this has always been true of japan on google maps. So... has anything really changed?
I was expecting this, but like not so soon. I was expecting a new continent at least every 6 months..
On a side note, am I the only one who notices that dragging the zoom bar's handle has a smooth (fatbits or whatever one calls it) zooming effect* now?
Firefox users need not apply; I see it on IE only so far, so I'm guessing it uses script and their zoom "Microsoft extension to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)." (rough translation: it's a non-standardized property)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Enter San Diego in google maps.
Scroll down.
You'll see that the world ends south of the United States.
(not like we didn't know that already)
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
"We could not understand the location amsterdam, netherlands"
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
What I would like is the ability to register information on google, so that people google me an by doing it they can find a travelroute to my place in Sweden.
Hook it in with GPRS and GPS and my friend could always find where the fuck I'm at, especially useful when i visit Stockholm, a suck-ass town in which I always get lost...
Enter Premium Pt New, Rochelle.
Zoom in.
Look at the text that says "We're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region."
Looks pretty incomplete to me.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
And you notice that google have done it again.
There is at least 4 times more land mass than before.
The world population will have enough room to grow.
Thank you google.
liqbase
Oh, I was hoping this would mean that the best-in-class road maps would finally go south of the US border. I've ALREADY been able to see the Mexico satellite photos -- granted I had to drag along the highway to get where I wanted: Hermosillo and San Carlos, but they've already been there.
Still, can't wait to see what develops!
--Jim (me)
If you are a geologist urban planner, or historian, why can't you buy satellite imagery? You'd get well-specified data, and not just some pictures from an unknown source. The cost of the data should be inconsequential if you have any kind of a budget. Having to pay twice for data from tax-funded sources is outrageous, but it doesn't make your life harder.
What I'm trying to say, professionals might have a use for this, but it shouldn't benefit them that much. On the other hand, if you are about to go hiking or hunting, or skiing, or fishing, then this is your only chance to see the area where you are going before you get there. It's also a great addition to driving directions. Would be even better if the imagery was real-time, or near real-time.
Just great! Now who's going to clean up this mess?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Maps of anchorage now actually appear to have streets which meet at right angles.
Of course they couldn't really show world maps if everything was normalized for the US.
While it's a cool thing, I don't know why I'd want to use this thing for something. The maps can be nice and useful, but why the satellite view? What's so interesting about seeing roofs?
Interestingly, Google has embraced older versions of the world, versions which have since been updated by the UN to be more accurate. Current UN world map http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/other/wor ld00.pdf
The most interesting difference in the size discrepency with the size of the northern hemisphere (first world countries) and the southern hemisphere (the third world). In Google's map, North America and eurasia are huge, but the UN map is a bit more balanced. This may explain why the satalite vision of the google world map matches the map version so poorly on the top and bottom.
They have satellite imagery of a very large piece of Denmark too: Clicky, clicky, looks just like the real thing to me. :-)
Money for nothing, pix for free
Once Google adds the option to turn off SafeSearch on Google Maps, you too will be able to search for hot whores.
;)
I for one, can't wait.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Woot! The whole world? Nude beaches of Spain, here I come!
I find http://www.map24.com/ to be superior to google maps. Even for the areas which google maps do have map data.
Apparently the Netherlands are below Belgium...
& spn=27.563344,64.863281&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=50.792047,5.625000
A lot of big cities are already gathering images and info (including satellite imagery) and making them available. Portland, OR (big?) has Portland Maps. Not as slick as Google, but it sure would be neat if google listed links to other map/info sources for a region you're looking at on their map. I think listing relevant links is something they can handle. Paris Metro? Utah Topo? Disneyland bathrooms?
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Now I can get directions to Fallujah and kick some terrorist/insurgent ass.
When zooming in, the "Gaza Strip" and the "West Bank" are labelled first. The label "Israel" does not appear unless one zooms further in.
where's all that Karma?
Why is Massachusetts brown, and the rest of they area around its borders is green?
Do people in New England not know how to grow grass or something?
023AD01("Child", "Evil");
Google may be full of very smart people but they still can't geliminate the Mercator projection distortion (although this is an aesthetic gripe) Google Maps is a clever web app that gets around many of the limitations of the browser, but I'd like to see a rich client, something like the 3D virtual globe Earth from Snow Crash perhaps? It doesn't have to be real time but it'd rock if it was - even if it was time delayed. I'd pay USD$5 a month for that, mainly for the eye candy. Anyone else interested?
I wonder what bit of US government paranoia caused this:9 6&spn=0.008122,0.008690&t=k&hl=en
9 4&spn=0.008122,0.008690&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.889145,-77.0087
but not this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.897502,-77.0365
It is interesting how they dealt with certain political issues. Kashmir is a bunch of dashed lines. Israel, too. Taiwan is labelled as such. The only thing that really throws me is Hong Kong. I thought that was officially part of China for the last 5 years.. I can't figure out what is going on with cyrus and the many lines through it. Anyone know what's up with that?
It seems that they have finally realized that there is dry land outside the US, but why can't they just bust out a real working worldwide map? The demand is there, the technology should be no problem, so what's taking so damn long? I've been waiting for a decent worldwide internet mapservice for the last couple of years. Come on guys, it shouldn't be that hard!
When is it going to work in my favourite browser (konqueror)?
I am trolling
Even better, they've finally got one way street labels in place. I thought this was a glaring problem before, and they've since remedied. Nicely done.
Looking at the satelite maps of the ocean it looks like you can see the contour of the ocean floor. Is this from the satelite photos or is this generated artificially? It looks like the resolution of the ocean photos are lower than the land mass areas.
interface and we can feel like superman or neo flying around the world...
At least the map of Australia has all the detail on.
Wanna kick ass in Fallujah? Download the citymap and the town gets rendered based on the satellite imagery. Want to fight orc hordes in frozen wastelands? Use siberian satellite imagery and add some CGI.
They still don't show exit numbers on freeway exits, which would be really useful. Of course, a scale would be really helpful too, so I know how long a mile or km is supposed to be at a given zoom level and map distortion.
Morphing Software
Maybe its just me being nowhere near google-elite enough, but this thing seems to still have some MAJOR problems.
"We could not understand the location Australia"...I mean cmon! Its not hard to find! I even tried putting in a street address in the exact format specified on the oh-so-helpful sidebar, just to get a "We could not understand..." message. Way to go google, whole world my ass!
I always thought i lived in The Netherlands, guess i was wrong!
& spn=38.153226,45.351563&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=49.496675,4.042969
When zoomed in I suddenly live in the Netherlands agian... odd!
Right here:1 &spn=78.826069,129.902344&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.840644,47.98828
The other day I needed to get to a house for a job...and I thought "hey I'll give that maps.google.com thing try." But it couldn't find either of the roads that would take me to the house. So I tried mapquest and it gave me the directions without a hitch. Sattelite imagery is cool though.
Come on. Google ought to show something better after months of wait.
This is just the basic blue marble picture, which everybody can download as a whole from nasa, and has only a resolution of about a km per pixel.
Implenting it should have taken about 15minutes...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
We could not understand the location beijing china
"Here be dragons"
Pretty Pictures!
should be
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I've been working on a full-earth terrain renderer for the last year, similar in style to Keyhole or Worldwind. The addition of worldwide outlines on google is wonderful, because yesterday afternoon I finally started to add a google maps data source to my application. Until now, it limited to WMS servers such as http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov./
It's not nearly complete yet, because I still haven't properly handled the projection google uses (so the image is off near the poles), and it breaks at high detail levels, but these should be easily fixed within the next couple days. It should easily scale to the best data Google offers in the future.
There is one screenshot at the bottom of the page. The quality is fairly low, but that's because it's being rendered on a 5 year old laptop (I'm currently away from home).
http://cs.ucsb.edu/~richards/terrain/
I have no idea if I'll ship this with google maps support (since it is against their TOS), but it was fun to do.
After heavy pressure from Israeli lobbyists, the US Congress enacted "shutter control" specifically for Israel in 1997. Satellites using US technology aren't permitted to image Israel with a resolution of greater than 2 meters per pixel. That's why the images of Israel are so lousy.
My tax dollars hard at work.
I have three monitors. It is even more fun to stretch the google maps page across all three monitors while in satellite mode. The extra viewing area makes browsing around the satellite imagery even more fun. Can't wait for those wall projectors to come down even more in price.
Well, after seeing this news, I looked to see if Google has fixed a bug of mine yet*, and they have not done so yet, *but* the big thing that I immediately noticed was the addition of directional arrows for one-way streets. I then proceeded to take a glance at 10021 to see how that showed up, and was pleased. :)
/Station Road/.
*I noticed and reported a missing DLR station on their map of England - it's still not there, despite the nice directional arrows on
Its called keyhole and was BOUGHT by google.
You know, the microsoft approach to getting know how...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I love Google Maps, but I hate their projection; it looks like Africa and Greenland have similar areas. However Africa is fourteen times the size of Greenland. And look at Antarctica; it should be half the size of Africa.
Google has had a pet project for quite a while called Keyhole 2 that has many more features that they seem to be dragging over to their maps site. The zoom is a lot better ( down to the level where you can see cars clearly ) and it is international ( China doesn't seem to work, go figure..)I got sucked in during the trial period but couldn't find a logical reason to pay for it.
I use Firefox and Comcast broadband. Every time I go to Google Maps to view a map, the map sections come in rapidly except the last section or two, which never come(s) in! This isn't a matter of the sections not existing. It happens with virtually every map I pull up. And I can sit there and hit the Refresh button on my browser and often a different section or sections will be the ones to not come in.
WTF? Anyone else experience this?
Insert witty sig here.
Plus his "I'm paying double" argument sounds hollow. He may be paying "double" for massaged data, and that's the way it should be (it's called "value-adding"). The raw data is there for the taking, and he can do all the massaging he wants (personally I prefer to tweak the data myself anyway). When the raw data is ONLY available through commercial companies, THEN he'll have something to complain about.
Certain areas are blacked out on the satellite view, quite a bit less creative than the fuzzing an overlaying of the roof images in the instances you give. Anyone in the area would know what the blacked out images were- and all it'd take would be someone physically going there to find out if they weren't a local.
You might as well put a sign on the damn imagery: "Terrorists strike HERE!"
I wish they'd at least be creative like stitching in surrounding countryside or somesuch so it's not so obvious that they're covering up for this sort of thing out of National Security requirements.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Ok, am I the only one that thought to try this?
:)
/. seem to like. :)
First, I understand why this would happen, because of terrorists, etc... I would like to state right now, that I am NOT a Terrorist...
But anyways, I was zooming in on cities and thought it was cool, I could pick out what house I wanted based on how it looked from the sky, etc..
So I thought... Hmmm.. Washington DC would be cool to see... White house in reference to SIZE of other buildings ect... so I punch it up... and when I'm in full zoom, it looks as if the White House and the two buildings on either side have been "Censored"... Look at other building tops, they show peaks, vents, etc... all that building roof stuff... On top of the White House and the two other buildings surrounding it... NOTHING...
Well, not NOTHING, but an obvious photoshop type hack to blank out details... interesting...
Thats all... Just interesting... Once again, you can't believe what you see, and all media has some type of controll... Personally, there are very REAL reasons for this, and I don't have a problem with that particular example, but what about other places... You might not even know that what you see is not what is really there...
Blurs on Lincoln Memorial, and other buildings also... this is now a game to me, find the censored images... new fun at google!
I bet it isn't 2:45pm at the Washington Monument either...
Just the type of conspiracy that the folks here on
Now... to Find Area 51... Maybe I should post anonymously... Naw... I'm sure they won't fin$%()*#^#(*%#.... {Carrier lost}
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
They're made of plastic! We're all gonna suffocate!
I don't get it.
You can already get the whole map of the world from NASA's World Wind, including the Urban satellite data, plus it's 3D...
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
maps.google.com is amazing! Google's programmers are geniuses!
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
And tomorrow, THE WORLD!!!!!
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
according to this post, good luck debugging/finding which zoom level image it was, thats a lot of slices to sort through, the last thing you want is new map thats wrong !!
then again mistakes have been known, some people couldnt even find Yugoslavia on a map!! imagine
glitches, UK sat images only let you differentiate between green bits and brown bits, and postcodes are offset from their tru position by about 2 streets.
not bitching about it being beta quality, just about it being beta quality and yet being on slashdot.
It would be nice to have a polar projection of polar areas.
Even better, a birds-eye-view for any zoom level that doesn't go past the horizon.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
And my country is just a bunch of islands.
Google micropayments .. going to be a reality?
o ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=217&mode=thread&cid=1229147 1 [slashdot.org]
As seen on slashdot a couple months back?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8264385/
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146731&thresh
Big fucking deal
Fuck google and fuck all the google fan boys, bunch of wankers
nt
And look. You got modded up to +3 Interesting by your white supremacist buddies. There should be a fucking -6 Anti-semite moderation on Slashdot with which I could nuke assholes like you into oblivion.
...judging from all the child posts below yours. I refer to dragging the zoom bar up or down without releasing the mouse button.
Does the map zoom in/out as you move the mouse in Firefox? If so, then I hang my head down in shame, as an utter liar. In IE, the whole map gets all pixelly; once you release the mouse button, it returns to a normal, smooth image (a set of them actually, but I digress).
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
This will make it a lot easier to find the island those poor people from Flight 812 crashed on. Just look for a big pirate ship, and we'll be close.
BytesTemplar.com
Not to pick a nit, but in the "whole map" view linked to from the main page. It still shows Russia as being the entire former USSR.
.. might want to update that map a little
I'm pretty sure in the *stans, Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya would have something to say about being lumped in with Russia.
Google
Just make sure that two-pixel pink blob isn't a guy.
Nothing like fuzzing out a public landmark that is so photographed that I could reconstruct an accurate-to-sub-meter 3d model just from publically available photos on the net. Like This One.
The Googleplex
I saw no satellite imagey of Africa, and they clam to have the whole world?
Does Africa truly not count?
Is israel just keeping a low profile?? ;)
The Google Maps thing is a limited HTML/Javascript image file hack. The real Keyhole application works through OpenGL, and you get real 3D. Pan, tilt, zoom, fly over 3D terrain, seamlessly.
Wow, it's really unbelievable, Google now has a highly exclusive, top notch world map showing all countries in the world!
Ahhh, it seems really a slow day today.
Well this is habitual, Portugal a small country Southwest Spain, doesn't came on map (World Map). :D
It's a shame, but happens all the time...A beautiful country, even after Euro2004 no one remembers it??
Well, it is obviously way off-topic, but looking at this I can't help but wonder how soon it will be that Google become so powerful we'll be glad Microsoft is still around?
Just a thought...
If you interested, I've tried to make a full list of changes on my website. That website has side by side picture comparisons of the old and new. Some things they did as well: darkened minor streets, changed the projection, added one-way arrows, added some major building landmarks, and changed the size of the images being sent.
And as a new advantage, they've changed the constant long/lat ratio to cos(latitude). You'll notice that now if you zoom in on Anchorage, AK, the streets are at right angles -- which they weren't when this week's earlier Google Maps posting was made.
.. but have a look at Worldwind http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/. It lets you view the whole world in sat images, and it includes height data, making the experience truly 3D!
Interesting how the UK winds up looking like such a lovely tranquil place with no-one living there when looking at the satellite view on Google Maps. ;-)
For those who might be interested, multimap.co.uk has had the satellite imagery for a few years. In fact, there's a book you can buy in shops here that show the UK page by page in satellite view.
The reason for the mismatch between the vector maps and the satellite layers is that the maps have recently been reprojected to mercator. One may assume that the satellite data is being reprojected as we type.
I noticed that immediately also, try zooming in on upstate NY and see how ridiculously zoomed in you have to be before Albany shows up, it shows all of these tiny little towns around it before it shows the capital of the state..
Are you sure?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
They still can't add Valdes Island??? I mean, it should be on their maps, just to be a little more accurate. If you don't know where Valdes Island is, it's just off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, between the Gabriola and Galiano Islands.
Well, in The Netherlands, there's a publicly available database of car licence plates. You type in a licence plate number, and the site returns information about the car and its owner.
Except for cars used by undercover cops and secret agents, then it returns the error that no information was found.
So, add one and one together, and criminals can easily notice if they're being followed by the cops...
Oh, and they're also going ahead with the GPS-enabled ankle-doohickeys, while their signals can be easily blocked by -- you guessed it -- tinfoil...
They're just fooling themselves.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
What's not to like? The only thing I'm not too fond of is that they're using what looks like a really bad Mercator projection, instead of, say, a Peters Projection. Of course it didn't make that much difference when North America was the only thing on the map--now it does make a difference.
:)
Also, would it have killed them to include some other major cities in the world, capitals maybe? Oh well, that's easy enough to do, so they'll probably do it. Or, given their current all-or-nothing approach, maybe they'll just map the whole world!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a cool site:
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/
The satellite image of the Capitol is blurred. Talk about paranoid. Not like its going to show anything that can't be found elsewhere, say google images (and google maps ain't realtime so that is no problem either). :)
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada isn't blurred as far as I can tell, and I would check other major sites in other countries, but only the US and Canada seem to have that level of satellite imagery.
On a side note, it'll be good when they finally image Australia properly, me wanna see my house
Australia is missing for one. Thats a big part of the world!
BTW, google is also free.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
The LoD in some bits of the US is great, little white spots of cars, and red rectangles of rooftops.
So in I zoom on London, but no such luck.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
the screenshot is here -> http://lixlpixel.org/belgium-is-netherlands.png
found at http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.179343,5.097656& spn=20.385598,52.207031&hl=en
Let's face ti folks Mane, New hampshire and vermont don't have very many cities but Google maps doesnt lable any of the ones that are there. As yo zoom in on nothern New England you will note that Portland, Bangor, Manchester and Burlington are not labled. Weld, Maine a town of fewer that 500 is put not Portland? what's with that?
Zoom in further and still these cities are not labled. What's going on? You have to be right on top of any of these cities before they get lables.
And it shows; when I checked it, the names of my fine country (The Netherlands) and our southern neighbours (Belgium) were exchanged on one scale. When I zoomed further, they displayed just nice.
Like science? Comics? Wicked...
Funny By Nature
Even with the low level of detail, there's interesting stuff for the amatuer environmentalist. Look at http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45,59.5&hl=en&z=9 and switch back and forth between map and satellite. It would be nice it they gave dates to the map and images, but I doubt it's much more than a ten-year difference.
Liechtenstein? didn't come up in the search...
Funny,
& spn=34.194819,76.113281&hl=en
I Didn't know we switched places with belguim...
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=50.233152,1.669922
Ok, it'll be a soft go-live - we'll flick the switch over the weekend and that'll give us time to iron out any bugs or costly political errors, then if everything is ok we'll announce... wait, NO! Someones posted to Slashdot!
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=VI+00802&ll=18.33041 0,-64.827576&spn=0.312866,0.566483&hl=en
They do, however, have some bugs to fix.
...we could buy our shares back!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Google Maps have got to be kidding themselves if they think they're showing the 'whole world'.
It can't even show images or maps of Sydney, Australia, a city of four million people!
What an unfinished piece of work this thing is. How can they justify their 'whole world' claim?
... who saw this - when Google maps first came out, I swear I could see the whole world, then google uk maps came out and suddenly maps.google.com was just north america, now it's the whole earth again and everyone is going nuts.. what gives?
It'll be interesting to see how they handle the mapping of satellite imagery of high lattitude locations to that stretched out rubber sheet they are using.
No source. No binary. No data. Er, what's the point? Research project or ego boost?
I tried to switch "Satellite view" on my home, and got message: Sorry, we have no satellite imagery on this.
Expediamaps.com has covered the whole world down to a small village resolution, with rail maps, etc., for years. The Google effort certainly needs a lot of work before it will be useful, and for the moment remains a U.S/Canada service.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Compare the map and sat-image of the Lake Aral in the southern Russia !1 &spn=78.826069,129.902344&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.840644,47.98828
Is this the nature spoilage or what ? The Lake was earlier (one of) the largest fresh water reservoirs in the world!
But what can you expect from a mapping system that has taken lat/long N 38.35 / W 98.5 as the center of the world. This is not a joke, Wacoma Lake in Kansas is the origin (x=0, y=0) of Google's mapping system. Even the maps of the UK are relative to that coordinate system.
I think you're misinterpreting the URL format. The "spn=" values are for zoom level. "ll=" values are latitude and longitude in decimal.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=0,0 centers on the Equator, directly South of Greenwich, just as you would expect.
My gripe with Google Maps is the absence of a scale display (although with that projection, it's not as easy to do as it might initially seem).