After the Vietnamese Foreign Affairs Ministry asked Google to correct errors on Google Maps this March, part of the border between Vietnam and China has been corrected.

The Google map five months ago (above) and the photo taken from satellite.

According to the old map, the Vietnam-China border encroached four kilometers into Vietnam’s territory, with the Red River, the section from Lung Po to Lao Cai city belonging to China.

In the new map, the wrong borderline in Lao Cai city has been corrected based on the real borderline. Geographic names in this area are also noted in Vietnamese and Chinese.

Kate Hurowitz, spokesperson of Google Maps, told Tuoi Tre Newspaper that this was Google’s effort to provide the most accurate and updated map.

“Part of the update is our correction of the border to more accurately reflect the current agreement between Vietnam and China on the border,” she said.

However, Dang Thai Son, chief of the Border Center’s northern border division, said that the Vietnam-China border in Lao Cai city has been corrected but it is not entirely correct because it doesn’t run along the median of rivers.

Other errors in the whole northern borderline, except for Lao Cai, have not been corrected yet, Son said. However, he highly appreciated Google’s move and hoped that Google would continue correcting errors.

Google Maps is a free web mapping service application provided by Google that powers many map-based services. Google recommends it should be used for reference only, but with a huge number of users, this map may create misunderstandings for foreigners who don’t have sufficient information about Vietnam’s border with China.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry in March 2010 asked Google to correct errors on Google Maps. Vietnam and China completed a land demarcation agreement and signed a protocol on land demarcation in late 2009, which took effect June 2010.

PV