Mystery: A Ghost Town That Exists Only In Google Maps

November 3rd, 2009 by ksantani

Google Maps

Halloween has gone but its traces still remains on Google Maps. A fictitious ghost town with a name Argleton is appearing in Google Maps as a part of UK but in reality, town with this name doesn’t exists (Find it here). It can be Google’s way of celebrating Halloween by offering a phantom town to UK. The satellite view of this imaginary town shows that there is nothing in there and you can find green empty fields (Pic below). But now comes the amusing part. If you try searching this town in Google, you can find the property prices, job listings and even weather forecast of this phantom town. These services are not fictitious as the software may have treated this as a real town in L39 postcode area. Or there is also the possibility of spelling mistake in Google Maps as just a few meters away there is real place with a name Aughton. Google and the Dutch company Tele Atlas which provided the mapping data are both clueless on how this town is entered in its database in the first place. Experts are saying that these are the deliberate error so that people can’t copy maps and in a way provide a copyright prevention method. Anyways, Google is inventing lot of things these days, now even a town. Good for them.

Satellite View Argleton

Via Telegraph

CrunchBase Information on Google

Google

Information provided by CrunchBase

CrunchBase Information on Google Maps

Google Maps

Information provided by CrunchBase

google, Google Maps

14 Responses to “Mystery: A Ghost Town That Exists Only In Google Maps”

kapow

4 months ago

Every year I travel to Argleton for my family reunions. A great town and believe me it’s real.

Jacob

4 months ago

@ kapow – Although I am not form UK, but your claim is difficult to believe. I just Googled Argleton, UK and by now the whole web is populated with this unknown town Argleton – http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Argleton+uk&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=6f7808d087b9b4da
1). If there would have been a real town by the name of Argleton in the UK, then I am sure Google would have ranked it above all these links.
2). ksanatni has also linked to a similar post by Telegrah, UK. I find it hard to believe that journalists @ Telegraph UK would do such a blunder. Both TechDusts and Telegraph UK are right.
Considering all the above points I think “kapow” is a phantom. Even the name is strange!

ksantani
(Twitter: @ ksantani )

4 months ago

@kapow Intersting.. I am not finding any reason to belive you.. Let me put some facts in front of you. Google has already acknowleged this as an error and they said and I quote “While the vast majority of this information is correct there are occasional errors. We’re constantly working to improve the quality and accuracy of the information available in Google Maps and appreciate our users feedback in helping us do so. People can report an issue to the data provider directly and this will be updated at a later date”
Tele Atlas the company who provided the mapping details to Google said ” Mistakes like this are not common, and I really can’t explain why these anomalies get into our database.”
But if you still feel Argleton is the place where you go for your family reunions and want to challenge Google then I would like to offer you a blog post in TechDusts with your findings about this town Argleton. If we feel that your findings are valid enough to prove that Argleton is a real place then we will feature your post in TechDusts. Its a deal.

Mayank Agarwal
(Twitter: @ mayank25may )

4 months ago

Perfectly Put. We would love to have kapow post about the findings of Argleton here at TechDusts.

Reply

Greg

4 months ago

Um…sarcasm anyone?

Rajiv

4 months ago

@Greg: Its not sarcasm dude … its commitment…

Reply

Nitin pandey

4 months ago

Sorry !! But hard to blv. Google has not expected to do so .lolz,,

ksantani
(Twitter: @ ksantani )

4 months ago

@Nitin Moreover Google is yet to correct the error from its database after acknowledging it. Its still showing up

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