Tourist sites get most attention on Google Street View; Netherlands ranks 20th globally

When people browse Google Street View, they mainly visit tourist attractions. The most viewed place in the Netherlands is the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, followed by the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. Other popular locations in the Netherlands are Schiphol, the Johan Cruijff ArenA, and Keukenhof.

Street View turns 15 this week. To celebrate, Google is taking new photos of another popular place in the Netherlands, namely the Formula 1 circuit in Zandvoort. The last pictures were taken in October 2010, long before the renovation of the racing complex. The new images of the circuit should be online in the course of the summer.

The Indonesian capital Jakarta is the most online visited place globally, followed by Tokyo and Mexico City. Many people also take a virtual look in São Paulo (Brazil) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Indonesia is the most popular country. On Street View, people also often look at what the United States, Japan, and Mexico look like. The Netherlands is in twentieth place in the ranking.

The most viewed building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. At almost 830 meters, it is the tallest building in the world. Street View has pictures of the view just below the top. The Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Taj Mahal in India also attract many visitors to Street View.

Google launched Street View in May 2007. The first cities on the service were New York, San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas, and Denver. The following year, the first cities outside the United States followed namely the Tour de France route. In 2009, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Groningen were mapped as the first cities in the Netherlands.

Street View now has 220 billion images from more than 100 countries. According to Google, the camera cars have traveled more than 16 million kilometers or 400 rounds around the earth. Google wants to start using a new camera next year that is easier to transport and can therefore be taken to hard-to-reach places, such as the Amazon rainforest.