Google has been accused of deleting Palestine from Google Maps – but the truth is, it was never labelled by Google in the first place.

When searching for Palestine on Google Maps, it shows an outline, but with no label for Palestine and Israel labelled alongside it. While 136 members of the United Nations recognise Palestine as an independent state, the US and much of the west does not.

The representation of Palestine on Google Maps has not changed recently, but after the forum of Palestinian journalists released a statement condemning Google, word spread via social media and later news outlets. People began sharing their outrage using the hashtag #PalestineIsHere.

Removing #Palestine from the map doesn't mean it ceases to exist. #PalestineIsHere pic.twitter.com/uQfIDcJOka — Talbia Akbar Khan (@talbiaakbar) August 9, 2016

Shame on you @google ! How dare you to support Israil and erase Palestine from @googlemaps ! #PalestineIsHere — Fatih Yağcı (@FatihYagciResmi) August 9, 2016

A Google spokeswoman said: “There has never been a ‘Palestine’ label on Google Maps, however we discovered a bug that removed the labels for ‘West Bank’ and ‘Gaza Strip’. We’re working quickly to bring these labels back to the area.”

A petition from March this year urging Google to include Palestine on their maps has gained traction in the last few days, now with almost 250,000 signatures.



While nothing has changed, the online outrage has pointed to questions about how mapping technologies affect people’s understanding of the world. The Washington Post’s Caitlyn Dewey wrote:

In their attempts to dispassionately document the physical world online, tech companies often end up shaping our understanding of it, too. That’s not something that we tend to think about often, but it does become pretty obvious when a map changes/is said to have changed, or when we compare different maps against each other.

This is not the first time Google has got into hot water over disputed territories – and it’s likely not to be the last. A 2014 project called Disputed Territories documented how Google Maps attempts to stay out of geographical disputes and issues of national identity.

For example: users in Russia see a solid boundary line around Russia and Crimea. Outside of Russia, Crimea is surrounded by dashed lines, indicating it as occupied territory.