LocalTaiwan Not Happy With Being A Chinese “Province” In Google Maps

Taiwan Not Happy With Being A Chinese "Province" In Google Maps

Via SEO Book,

Taiwan tells Google it is not a China province
from Reuters has Taiwan
asking Google to stop calling it "Taiwan, Province Of China" on Google Maps, as
you can see here. Out
of curiosity, I went looking at a few other hot spots to see how Google was
handling them.

Macedonia is labeled
that way on the map but identified as "The former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia," which I gather
is the UN preferred name for the country. The country itself uses "The Republic
Of Macedonia," which is recognized by several other countries, including the
United States.

As for

Cyprus
, the Republic Of Cyprus is shown to occupy the entire island of
Cyprus except for the two small UK-run
Sovereign Base Areas.
In reality, the Republic Of Cyprus occupies two-thirds of the southern half of
the island, with the northern third occupied by the Turkish-backed Turkish
Republic Of Northern Cyprus.

As I

understand
, the UN and all governments other than Turkey recognize that the
Republic of Cyprus has sovereignty over the entire island, so perhaps Google
might argue the label is correct. But the border between the two areas is very
real, as anyone who has to cross it knows. The map simply doesn’t reflect that
physical reality.

How about MSN Virtual Earth? I’d say it escapes criticism in two of three
cases, because it doesn’t supplement the map labels with descriptions. In other
words:


  • Taiwan
    is just labeled as Taiwan, with no mention of it being a province
    or not of China
     

  • Cyprus
    is just labeled as Cyprus, and while a dividing line is shown, no
    further labels are given to say what portion is part of the Republic of
    Cyprus.
     

  • Macedonia
    is called FYROM or FYRO Macedonia, so the choice there isn’t
    open to interpretation. MSN is going with the UN-backed name, rather than the
    name the country prefers.

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