France’s Geoportail Deemed a Success

The project, Geoportail, developed by France was a smashing hit after more than five million users accessed the site on its first day of the release. Geoportail is France’s substitute to the Google Earth, and it offers high resolution aerial imagery of France. The site was heavily bombarded by internet users and this allowed only one in five user to access the site. The state-funded National Geographic Institute created Geoportail and it hopes to surpass the US pioneer in the field, Google Earth.

The Geoportail promoters may need to maintain the access to the site by the use of passwords if the outstanding level of traffic to the site persists. On average a popular French site would receive about four million hits a day.

The project is worth €6 million, and it hopes to be as much as successful as Google Earth. Although Google Earth offers views of the whole planet, it limits the high resolution to only certain zone. The Geoportail currently covers the entire France’s territory including overseas and mainland. Users can easily switch from aerial view of a place, to detailed maps, geological data and charts. A three-dimensional tool is planned to be added later this year. The users are hoping to see a feature that allows them to zoom in within 50cm of the ground.