Aljazeera

Google's Maps service has unveiled a highly detailed map of North Korea, an area that went largely undocumented on the service previously.

Monday's development comes just weeks after Eric Schmidt, chairman of the California-based-based internet company, embarked on a secret trip to the country.

"For a long time, one of the largest places with limited map data has been North Korea. But today we are changing that," Jayanth Mysore, a senior product manager at Google Map Maker, said in blog posting on Monday.

Map Maker creates maps from data that is provided by the public and fact-checked in a similar process to that used by Wikipedia.

Mysore said the North Korea section had been completed with the help of a "community of citizen cartographers" working over a period of several years.

"While many people around the globe are fascinated with North Korea, these maps are especially important for the citizens of South Korea who have ancestral connections or still have family living there," he said.