What is Google Earth?

What is Google Earth?

Google Earth is a computer program that’s like an interactive digital atlas. It shows you the whole planet, right down to your own home. It works on smartphones and tablets, but the best experience is on the bigger screen of a laptop or desktop computer.

In this course, we’ll focus on how to use Google Earth on a desktop computer.

Google Earth vs Google Maps

You might have heard of Google Maps. Google Maps looks similar to Google Earth, but it's more like a street directory than an atlas. Google Maps provides real-time directions and traffic flow that help you get around, while Google Earth focuses on world discovery.

Simple controls let you fly around the world

With Google Earth, you use your mouse to rotate the globe on the screen and click on any location to zoom down through the clouds to street level.

You can search for any address on the planet and ask to see landmarks like Uluru or the Eiffel Tower.

It’s like you’re flying across the world in seconds.

Much more than a simple atlas

Unlike a printed atlas, Google Earth is dynamic, as it's regularly updated with new satellite and aerial photography.

More than a great view of the world, it's also a travel encyclopaedia, complete with virtual tours of all sorts of places, such as the Taj Mahal.

See more with Street View

Once you zoom in on a location, you can go for a virtual walk thanks to Street View. This puts you right in the middle of the scene as if you were really standing there.

Street View offers a 360-degree view of the world, stitched together from images taken by cameras from the global fleet of Street View cars.

Revisit your old haunts

Google Earth isn't just for exploring new places or planning holidays. It also makes it easy to reconnect with places that mean something special to you.

You can take a tour of your old neighbourhood or check out the major landmarks in your life, such as your first house, first school and where you got married.

eSafety tip

Although you can view streets and houses with Google Earth, you are not looking at them in real time. You are looking at photographs taken from satellites in space, as well as photographs taken from airplanes.

So, although the images are updated regularly, if you look at your own house on Google Earth, then walk outside, you won’t be able to see yourself on the screen.

Master the tricks of Google Earth

Google Earth is simple to use if you just want to zoom around the world, but it has much more to offer once you take the time to master it.

The next few activities in this course will show how to get even more out of Google Earth, putting the world at your fingertips.

Well done

You’ve reached the end of the What is Google Earth? activity.

You have learned that Google Earth is a digital atlas that allows you to zoom right down to street level to see amazing sites.

Next up, we’ll look at how to use Google Earth, in the Getting started with Google Earth activity.