Google to review Cambodian map over Preah Vihear Temple

10 Feb, 2010
(Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH -- Google wrote to Cambodian government and said the company is going to review a map of the 11th built century temple of Preah Vihear, where the temple' s annex is also claimed by Thailand.

The letter, which was seen on Wednesday, said "we are carefully reviewing the Government of Cambodia's objection regarding the depiction of Cambodian borders in Google Earth, and we plan to respond to your letter more fully in the very near future."

Google, however, said in the letter that Google Earth combines satellite imagery, borders and place name data from a variety of public and private third party providers.

"Our data in every case has limited resolution. When we combine satellite imagery from one provider with border data from another, this can lead to visible inaccuracies," said the Google' s letter signed by Ross LaJeune, head of the firm's public policy and government affairs for Asia Pacific.

The letter also said that Google, who is always interested in improving the mapping data quality, recommended Cambodia to express her concerns directly to Tele Atlas who provided the Cambodia-Thailand border data.

"This will enable any changes to be reflected not only in Google Earth but in all products using data from that provider (Tele Atlas)," said the letter.

Cambodian government also sent a letter to Tele Atlas for correction, but was not immediately know if Tele Atlas has made any responses.

On February 5, Cambodia wrote to Google in which said of the map that "a frontier line between Cambodia and Thailand in the section of the Temple of Preah Vihear has been very wrongly marked which is radically misleading and totally misguiding." And Cambodian government asked Google to withdraw the map.

The 900-year-old Khmer temple was listed by UNESCO as Cambodia' s World Heritage Site in 2008.

The UN court of International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1962 in which the court ruled out that the Temple of Preah Vihear is situated in the territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia.

Editor: Xiong Tong