Next week, the Republic of South Sudan will celebrate its one month anniversary as a sovereign, independent country. It was admitted as a member state of the United Nations just days after declaring independence on July 9. At UN headquarters in Geneva today, South Sudan’s flag was raised for the first time.
The Republic of South Sudan is becoming firmly embedded as the newest country in the world, so why can’t it get some respect from Google Maps? On July 14, a Google spokesperson sent me the following message about South Sudan’s then-absence from Google Maps one week after independence:
“We work hard to make our maps as accurate as possible and we do our best to ensure they reflect the on-the-ground reality. As maps are always evolving, we regularly review additional information and update when data becomes available.
Following the formal independence of South Sudan, we are in the process of updating our map and boundary data for the region. We look forward to publishing this updated data on our maps in the near future.”
I suppose one month later still qualifies as “the near future.”