Street View Japan
Japan was one of the first countries outside the United States to get Street View, and one of the first to make Google change how it works. The cameras that photographed Japan are physically lower than the ones used elsewhere, and that is why.
City guides
2 written guides for Japan, each with the streets worth walking and the views worth opening.
The cameras were lowered by forty centimetres
Street View arrived in Japan in 2008 with the camera at 2.45 metres, which is roughly the height of a garden wall. In a country where houses sit close together behind exactly that kind of wall, the cars were looking over them into gardens and ground-floor windows.
In May 2009 Google agreed to drop the cameras to 2.05 metres and rephotograph everything already shot, which was twelve cities including Tokyo and Osaka. It is the only time a country has made Google rebuild the rig and start again.
The effect is still visible. Japanese Street View sits noticeably lower than European or American imagery, closer to the eye level of someone walking, and residential streets feel more enclosed as a result.
What is unusually good here
Coverage of small streets. Japanese cities are built on lanes rather than blocks, and a surprising number of them were driven. Neighbourhoods that would be a blank on the map in most countries are walkable here.
Shrine and temple grounds, many of which were shot on foot with the backpack rig rather than the car. Fushimi Inari in Kyoto is the obvious one and goes a long way up the mountain.
The rural coverage is better than the population would suggest, so the Nakasendo post towns, the Noto peninsula and the Setouchi islands are all explorable.
Worth opening beyond the city guides
The Nakasendo between Magome and Tsumago, a preserved stretch of the Edo-period highway with the road surface and the buildings both intact.
Shirakawa-go, where the steep thatched farmhouses were built for snow that arrives by the metre.
Naoshima, an island turned over almost entirely to contemporary art, where the outdoor pieces sit on the shoreline.
Yakushima, for cedar forest that is nothing like the image most people hold of Japan.
Places to open
8 locations in Japan, each one a single click into Street View at the right spot and facing the right way.
Questions about Street View in Japan
Why does Japanese Street View look lower than other countries?
Because it is. Google lowered the cameras from 2.45 to 2.05 metres in 2009 after complaints that the cars were seeing over garden walls, and rephotographed the twelve cities already covered. Japan is the only country that produced that change.
Is Street View available outside Japanese cities?
Widely, yes. Rural coverage is better than in most countries of comparable size, and a lot of shrine grounds, hiking approaches and island roads were captured on foot rather than by car.