Google Maps Adds Driving Directions for North Korea

On the list of 'fun tourist destinations that we'd love to just rent a car and drive through,' the lush landscapes of... North Korea... don't really come to mind.

There's the whole ' totalitarian state' thing, which might make one's trip a bit difficult. But on the off chance that you do happen to get your hands on a car while touring around North Korea, or you're a friendly North Korean citizen reading this article using the country's Internet services (how are you doing that, by the way?), then you're in luck!

Google has officially debuted driving directions for North Korea on its Google Maps service — assuming, of course, that the company has been able to map out the roads between wherever you are now and wherever your final destination might be.

Interestingly enough, the driving directions that are available in North Korea are not, themselves, available in what one might consider the 'freer' country of South Korea. According to the website North Korea Tech, it's thought that some kind of internal restrictions related to security have forced Google to pull the option for the entirety of the country.

And, no, don't even think about trying to plot driving directions between North and South Korea.

'If you take a close look, you'll see that Google doesn't have any data for South Korea's civilian control zone, the area by the border with North Korea that appears as a grey blank. The closest the system can get is Imjingak and even then only public transport information is available,' writes North Korea Tech.

You also can't plot routes between North Korea and its other neighbors — there goes that weekend drive to Beijing, we suppose. Also don't expect to be able to see how your driving time compares against North Korea's public transportation. Due to the lack of available data (or at least, data that can be accessed by Google), there are no timetables for public transportation on Google Maps for North Korea.

It's unclear whether Google was the sole provider of information that allowed it to finally craft up driving directions within the country, or whether Google's attempts to crowdsource its maps of North Korea — starting in January of last year — was the driving force (pardon the pun).