The History of Mapping in India

This was one of the most stupendous human endeavors in history. Proposed by British infantry officer William Lambton and later completed by George Everest, the project aimed to measure the entire Indian subcontinent with scientific precision.

They set out to measure the Great Arc of the Meridian from the southern tip of India to the Himalayas. Surveyors used massive "Great Theodolites" weighing over 1,000 pounds, dragging them across malarial swamps, jungles, and deserts. It took nearly 70 years, cost many lives, but resulted in the first highly accurate maps of India and led to the discovery and measurement of the world's highest peaks, including Peak XV (later named Mount Everest).

After India gained independence in 1947, the Survey of India (India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping, originally founded in 1767) modernized its approach. Moving away from purely ground-based triangulation, they adopted aerial photogrammetry. Specially equipped aircraft flew over the country taking overlapping photographs, which were then used to create detailed topographical maps. For decades, these paper maps were strictly regulated by the Ministry of Defence due to national security concerns.

India took its mapping capabilities to space with the establishment of ISRO's satellite programs. The launch of the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites, starting with IRS-1A in 1988, allowed India to capture high-resolution imagery of its own landmass from orbit. This data became crucial for agriculture, urban planning, disaster management, and eventual digital cartography.

Private digital mapping began long before smartphones. In 1995, Rakesh and Rashmi Verma founded MapmyIndia. Because government maps were restricted and digitizing them was difficult, they manually mapped the streets of India by walking and driving through cities, noting down addresses and landmarks. They launched India's first interactive digital mapping portal in 2004, laying the groundwork for digital navigation in the country.

When Google decided to map India, the lack of structured cartographic data was a massive hurdle. In 2008, Google engineers in Bengaluru launched Google Map Maker, crowdsourcing the map by allowing local volunteers to manually trace roads and railways over satellite imagery.

Furthermore, because standard Western street addresses didn't work in India, Google introduced Landmark-Based Navigation in 2009. Instead of saying "Turn left on MG Road," the algorithm used local data to say "Turn left after the HDFC Bank," adapting perfectly to how Indians naturally navigate.

For decades, mapping data was heavily restricted by the government. In 2021, the Indian government introduced the National Geospatial Policy, dramatically deregulating the sector. Indian companies were finally allowed to collect, generate, and store geospatial data (including 3D mapping and Street View) without prior approvals.

This sparked a massive boom. Google relaunched Street View in 2022 (this time partnered with local Indian firms like Genesys International), while ISRO's Bhuvan geoportals and private drone companies are now mapping the country down to centimeter-level accuracy using AI and machine learning.

Long before Google Maps existed, the husband-wife duo Rakesh and Rashmi Verma founded MapmyIndia (under C.E. Info Systems) in 1995. At a time when public internet was practically non-existent in India, they literally walked the streets of major cities, manually recording addresses, charting landmarks, and triangulating data. They built India's first digital geospatial database, initially serving B2B clients like Coca-Cola to track distributorships, before launching their consumer portal in 2004.

When Google decided to map India, they faced a massive hurdle: buying high-quality, up-to-date cartographic data for the entire country was prohibitively expensive, and the roads changed constantly.

To solve this, Google engineers Lalitesh Katragadda and Sanjay Jain, working out of the Bengaluru office, developed Google Map Maker. Launched in June 2008, this tool allowed local volunteers to manually trace roads, railways, and boundaries over Google's satellite imagery. Because locals knew their own neighborhoods best, this crowdsourced approach rapidly built out the complex, unorganized road networks of India. (The tool was so successful it was eventually exported to 187 other countries before being merged into the main Google Maps app in 2017).

Google researchers quickly realized that standard Western navigation prompts like "Turn left on MG Road" didn't work in India. Street signs were often missing, and culturally, Indians simply didn't navigate that way. Instead, locals gave directions like, "Take a left past the petrol pump, and go straight until the big banyan tree."

In December 2009, Google rolled out Landmark-Based Navigation specifically for India. Using the massive database of "Points of Interest" (POIs) generated by Map Maker volunteers, Google's algorithm began issuing natural, conversational cues based on the visibility and importance of local landmarks (e.g., "Turn right after the HDFC Bank").

Throughout the 2010s, mapping apps had to adapt to India's unique infrastructural challenges. Google introduced several features conceived specifically for the Indian market that later went global:

• Offline Maps: Launched to combat spotty internet connectivity during travel.
• Two-Wheeler Mode: Introduced to help the millions of scooter and motorcycle riders find shortcuts through narrow alleys where cars couldn't fit.
• Regional Voice Navigation: Rolled out in languages like Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali to make voice guidance accessible to non-English speakers.

For years, strict government regulations around security prevented foreign companies from collecting street-level panoramic data, causing Google to suspend its Street View efforts in India multiple times.

This changed with the National Geospatial Policy of 2021, which significantly deregulated the sector. The new rules allowed local Indian companies to freely collect geospatial data, while foreign firms could license it from them. Capitalizing on this, Google partnered with Indian firms Genesys International and Tech Mahindra to officially relaunch Street View in India in 2022, marking the first time in the world that Street View was brought to life entirely by local partners.