Google Earth Turns 20 Adding Historical Street View Imagery

Leo Migdal

-Dec 14, 2025, 1:28 PM

google earth turns 20 adding historical street view imagery

We’re taking a look back at the major launches, moments and milestones that made Google Earth what it is today. Google Earth is celebrating 20 years of helping people explore the world. You can now access historical Street View imagery within Google Earth. Professionals can also use new features to evaluate building designs and access city-level insights. Google Earth is 20 years old and it helps people see the world. It has lots of pictures from planes, satellites, and even the street.

People use it to learn about the Earth and help their communities. Now, you can even see old Street View pictures on Google Earth. Okay, here are three haiku summarizing the Google Earth article, mentioning relevant Google products and services: Earth turns twenty now, Google Earth, Street View expands, History unfolds. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Google Earth is celebrating is 20th birthday this month

It's just added a new historical Street View feature for time-traveling Pro users will also get AI-powered upgrades to help with urban planning Google Earth has just turned 20 years old and the digital globe has picked up a feature that could prove to be an addictive time-sink – historical Street View. With its 20th anniversary update, Google Earth brings historical Street View timelines to the platform for a more detailed view of urban evolution. There’s a peculiar thrill in peering at a familiar street corner and realizing it looked completely different just a few years ago. Whether it’s the disappearance of a local shop, the rise of a gleaming new skyscraper, or the slow regrowth of a forest patch, witnessing these transformations can feel like digital time travel.

Google is leaning into that fascination: in celebration of Google Earth’s 20th anniversary, the platform now brings historical Street View imagery into its fold, letting anyone “rewind” street scenes directly within Earth’s globe-spanning interface. Simultaneously, Google is rolling out AI-driven environmental insights for professional users, spotlighting tree canopy coverage and land surface temperatures. Together, these updates aim to deepen our understanding of how places evolve over time and how they might be shaped for the future. Since its launch in 2005, Google Earth has invited users to soar above cities, oceans, and remote landscapes, revealing secrets from the comfort of a desktop or mobile screen. Over the years, Google added functionality like historical satellite and aerial imagery—which until last year was confined to the Earth Pro desktop app—but now, historical Street View is joining the party. Previously, if you wanted to scroll through past Street View captures, you’d switch back to Google Maps, where a timeline slider appears when you’re in Street View mode.

Now, that same capability is available in Google Earth: click into Street View, and you’ll be able to browse imagery from different years to see how a particular block or landmark has changed over... This integration is more than a novelty: it unifies the “big-picture” view of satellite/aerial imagery with the intimate, street-level snapshots. Imagine tracing the evolution of a waterfront development by toggling between overhead satellite imagery from, say, 2010 to 2025, then diving into Street View timelines to inspect construction phases, changes in storefronts, or shifts... By embedding historical Street View in Earth, Google is encouraging a holistic exploration of place-based change: from the macro to the micro. Last year, a social media trend saw users virtually time-traveling via Google Maps to revisit childhood homes, track the emergence of new buildings, or simply marvel at “then vs. now” juxtapositions.

That viral curiosity revealed a hunger for personal and collective memory through geospatial visualization—and Google is responding by making that experience more seamless in Earth. For casual explorers, it’s pure delight: you might revisit the street where you attended college, observe the growth of a neighborhood, or compare seasonal changes at a national park entrance. For educators and storytellers, the feature can serve as a visual aid: history classes can use it to illustrate urban growth or decay; environmental studies might show coastal erosion or reforestation; cultural pieces can... Plus, a look at history from a bird's eye view When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Over the last 20 years, Google Earth has enabled us to explore the globe through billions of images from aerial photography, satellite imagery, Street View, and 3D images. The globe explorer debuted a few months after Google Maps, but is more than just a way to get you from point A to point B. Google claims that in the last year alone, Google Earth has been searched over 2 billion times. Google Earth wowed everyone 20 years ago, and it’s still pretty cool. After 20 years, being able to look at any corner of the planet in Google Earth doesn’t seem that impressive, but it was a revolution in 2005. Google Earth has gone through a lot of changes in that time, and Google has some more lined up for the service’s 20th anniversary.

Soon, Google Earth will help you travel back in time with historic Street View integration, and pro users will get some new “AI-driven insights”—of course Google can’t update a product without adding at least... Google Earth began its life as a clunky desktop client, but that didn’t stop it from being downloaded 100 million times in the first week. Today, Google Earth is available on the web, in mobile apps, and in the Google Earth Pro desktop app. However you access Earth, you’ll find a blast from the past. For the service’s 20th anniversary, Google was inspired by a social media trend from last year in which people shared historical images of locations in Google Maps. Now, Google Earth is getting a “time travel” interface where you can see historical Street View images from almost any location.

While this part isn’t new, Google is also using the 20th anniversary as an opportunity to surface its 3D timelapse feature. These animations use satellite data to show how an area has changed from a higher vantage point. They’re just as cool as when they were announced in 2021. Google announced on Tuesday that you can now access historical Street View imagery on Google Earth. Until now, you’ve only been able to access historical Street View imagery on Google Maps. Google says the launch will allow people to explore from even more viewpoints, whether it’s a bird’s-eye view or at street level.

Google is introducing the update to commemorate Google Earth’s 20th birthday. The launch comes as there was a social media trend last year that saw people visiting Google Maps to virtually time travel and find their loved ones on imagery or see how a place... Now users will be able to do so right from Google Earth, the tech giant says. The company also announced that professional users in the U.S. will be able to access new AI-driven insights about the planet on Google Earth, such as tree canopy coverage for cities. For example, in Austin, Texas, users can view areas with more tree cover and identify spots that might benefit from cooling approaches.

They can also access land surface temperature data to see which parts of the city are hotter in order to inform urban planning decisions. To mark its 20th anniversary, Google is also introducing a look back in time in Google Earth. This allows history to be viewed from a different perspective. Google Earth was launched 20 years ago and to mark the anniversary, Google is giving users a glimpse into the past. Now that historical Street View images are already available in Google Maps, they have also been integrated into Google Earth. According to the data company, this allows users to follow developments in cities from a different perspective.

In a review of the years since the introduction of Google Earth, Google writes on its blog that Google Earth was downloaded 100 million times in 2005 in the first week of its availability... The company does not go into current user data, but claims that users searched for locations in Google Earth more than 2 billion times last year. They can now do the same in the past, now that Google Earth also contains old Street View images. Google Maps has already allowed this for some time, which led to a trend on social networks last year. Users used Google Maps to find images of deceased relatives and published them on TikTok, for example, as TechCrunch writes. Google Earth now also allows this.

Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externes YouTube-Video (Google Ireland Limited) geladen. Google has added a new feature to Google Earth that lets users view historical Street View imagery. This means users can now look at older street-level photos of cities and neighbourhoods directly in Google Earth, similar to how they already can in Google Maps. The update marks the 20th anniversary of Google Earth. The new feature is now available in the web and mobile versions of Google Earth. Users can use the new feature by searching for a place, dragging the Pegman icon onto a road, and selecting ‘See more dates’ to view older Street View images.

When users drag the Pegman icon onto a street in Google Earth, a timeline appears. If older photos are available, users can scroll through different years. In many areas, the images go back more than 10 years. With this new feature, users can see how streets and buildings looked in the past. This gives people the chance to revisit old memories, like what their hometown looked like years ago or how a construction site turned into a finished building. It can also be useful for comparing how different areas have developed, or how they were affected by events like natural disasters or urban changes.

In addition to the new Street View feature, the company is also adding more tools to help with environmental planning. Soon, Google Earth Pro and business users will have access to AI-powered layers that show things like tree cover, land surface temperature, and rooftop reflectivity. These tools (powered by Google’s Gemini AI) are meant to help researchers, city planners, and environmental groups better understand local climate and urban design. Notably, Google Earth was first launched in June 2005 and became one of the most downloaded programs in its early days. Over the years, it has evolved into a detailed digital globe used for education, exploration, and planning. It already includes features like 3D maps and historical satellite images, but this is the first time users can explore past Street View scenes directly within Earth.

Google Earth just hit a big milestone, its 20th birthday on June 10, and to celebrate, Google is adding a fun and fascinating new feature: historical Street View imagery. This means you can now see how neighborhoods and places looked in different years, basically taking a virtual trip back in time. This feature first showed up on Google Maps last year, and now it’s making its way to Google Earth’s 3D globe, making the experience even more immersive. With this update, you can easily switch between different time periods to see how a spot has changed. Whether you want to zoom out for a bird’s eye view or stroll down the street level, this tool lets you watch the years roll by. Imagine revisiting your childhood home, watching a city grow, or tracking how forests and lakes have evolved over time.

On Google Maps, the historical images go back as far as 80 years, and now Google Earth brings that same magic with a fresh, interactive spin. For 20 years we’ve been asking…What. Why. How. When. Where #onEarth?

Google Earth Turns 20 Adding Historical Street View Imagery

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