When was it you last saw a scenic photo and wondered where it was taken? Well, we all have wondered at one time or other and never quite got where the photo was taken. The photo sharing site Panoramio seems to address this problem.

Like any other photo sharing site this one allows the users to upload images and share them. But then this site is for those who want to share photos of their surrounding and not themselves.What keeps Panoramio out of the crowd is that this is a location aware photo sharing site. This means that the photos here have references to the location on Google map.

Since Panoramio is all about photos of places if you upload images of pets, car and yourself they do not get associated to Google map. This is because images of objects and people don’t tell anything about the place. Despite rejections Panoramio boasts more than a million photos and 3,00,000 registered users. To upload photos you need to signup.

The size of an image can be of maximum of 5MB and mapping of the photo needs to be done to the location and not over the subject of the photo. I took some images of locations from Goa and uploaded them. Once photo was uploaded I was prompted to type the title of the image. Now you can exit at this point without mapping the photo to the map or click on the link ‘Map this photo’. Clicking on ‘Map this photo’ another text box pops up asking for the name of the place or city.

If there is more than only place with the same name then Panoramio show which country these places are located in.I was astonished to see that there were 16 places in different countries called “Goa”. Selecting the India we proceeded. A small window containing the satellite images and maps from the Google Earth showed us the location of Goa.

You can now zoom into this satellite image and pinpoint the location of the picture with the help of a red balloon. I felt at this point that the satellite image could have been bigger to help us locate the place easily. Location based photos helps you to have a glimpse of the surroundings before keeping a foot at that place. After placing the images at a location in Goa I saw some other photos around that place making me realize that I hadn’t visited them.


At Panoramio you can find photos of beaches, buildings, hills, and photos of one’s surroundings.There are no paid services as of now and you can upload upto 2 GB of photos.

The uploaded photos are not updated in real time on Google map and takes couple of weeks to see them on Google Earth, provide they satisfy certain conditions like—photo is of a place, images are not small in size and is ideally more that 4 megapixel, images are not blurred and they do not contain obstructive copyright notices. Once the image was uploaded the image was represented as a blue compass on Google Earth and they are shown up in every computer with Google Earth.

If you find a wrongly located photo on the map posted by someone else and you know the correct location then you can use the link ‘Suggest new location’. Once the owner finds that the location of his photo needs correction he may change the location to the suggested location. However, if you have placed the image wrongly on the map and want to correct it you can do so by clicking ‘change position’ button located under the two maps and drag the read bubble to correct location.

Unlike in Flickr one could download the original file (image) and not worry about resolution being downgraded, a plus point in Panoramio. Tagging like in Flickr allows easy organization of uploaded photos. ‘Favorites’ represented (symbolized) as stars allows you to track new photos uploaded by that user. Though the site has well balanced features we felt it lacks prettiness which is necessary for a Web site. No complaints in terms of functionality wise.

Panoramio is the only site that shares location awareness photos and with the services of site is bound to expand and become better.