Google Maps is one of the company's most magical services, but its navigational utility sadly varies a bit from country to country. For several reasons, not all regions have the same sort of data available. Google offers three tiers of data availability and quality when it comes to things like biking directions, traffic, and speed limits, and the company has just updated its table for Map Coverage Details to reflect several recent changes in coverage.
Google Maps gets its data from a lot of different places. Some of it, like the real-time Traffic Layer, is crowdsourced, gathered from Android devices traveling in the area. Other information can be collected via computational means from satellite or street view photos, and yet more can be gathered directly via things like the Base Map Partner Program and direct integration with third-party agencies, as in the case of some public transit partners.
The quality of information available is changing all the time. Most of the recent changes in coverage included below are for the better, with plenty of places seeing upgraded ratings, but there are a few turns for the worse.
Traffic
The following regions saw their Traffic Layer data upgraded from "not available in the area, or with low data quality or availability," to "available in the area, with good data quality and availability."
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Angola
- Antigua & Barbuda
- Ascension Island
- Barbados
- Belize
- Benin
- Bermuda
- Bhutan
- Botswana
- British Virgin Islands
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Cayman Islands
- Congo - Kinshasa
- Cyprus
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Ethiopia
- Faroe Islands
- Fiji
- French Guiana
- French Polynesia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Gibraltar
- Grenada
- Guam
- Guernsey
- Guinea
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Malawi
- Mali
- Martinique
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- New Caledonia
- Niger
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Papua New Guinea
- Rwanda
- Réunion
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- St. Kitts & Nevis
- St. Lucia
- Suriname
- Timor-Leste
- Togo
- Turks & Caicos Islands
- Uganda
- Vatican City
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Åland Islands
Speed Limits
The following regions saw their Speed Limit data downgraded from "available in the area, with approximate data quality or availability" to "not available in the area, or with low data quality or availability."
- Algeria
- Bangladesh
- Bolivia
- Cambodia
- Ecuador
- India
- Iran
- Madagascar
- Mongolia
- Morocco
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Qatar
- Senegal
- South Africa
- Syria
- Vietnam
Tokelau's Speed Limit data has been upgraded from "not available in the area, or with low data quality or availability" to "available in the area, with approximate data quality or availability." Austria saw its Speed Limit data downgraded from "available in the area, with good data quality and availability" to "available in the area, with approximate data quality or availability."
Biking Directions and other changes
Argentina's Biking Directions were upgraded from "not available in the area, or with low data quality or availability" to "available in the area, with good data quality and availability."
Three country-level changes to the chart also took place: Swaziland has been renamed to Eswatini, Macedonia has changed its name to North Macedonia, and Google has changed its spelling for Macau to Macao.
Source: Google