Something funny happens when Google Maps meets the Chinese border. Commercial data providers follow China’s coordinate system (GCJ-02). Their illusion comes to a crashing halt when you reach a border with Hong Kong, Macau, or any other country.

In Móng Cái, Vietnam, something is noticeably off:

The OpenStreetMap version, traced from satellite imagery, tells a different story

This isn’t a politically disputed border problem. Google and Bing push the two cities together while following Chinese data rules and invented new geography to try and reconcile the problem. This issue has surfaced before, but it rarely enters promotion of OpenStreetMap.

Why bring this up now? As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, new buildings and roads are being constructed on both sides of the border:

This new highway link to Myanmar is completely missing from both Google and OSM. We have unmapped, under-mapped, and outdated coverage across Southeast Asia. And no other major web map provider will show these border cities accurately.

With rapid economic development come other changes. An extreme case is Mong La, which a BBC report called “Myanmar’s lawless region where anything goes”. We should have OSM data to support NGOs and monitoring groups which work in these areas.

I did a little editing to start, but here’s my plan going forward:

• I made a new OSM Wiki page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China/Borderlands

• I messaged multiple editors of the China-Myanmar border and a few NGOs

• On Wednesday, 17th of June, I plan to do a 3+ hour livestream focused on using iD editor.

I hope you’ll join a Twitch stream (or video chat?). I will post the link in comments to my diary post on the day of, or you can follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mapmeld