Google Maps Serves Up Panaromic View of 'Skyfall' Island

Now you can remotely explore the rubble of Raoul Silva's secret island hideaway in the latest James Bond thriller Skyfall, courtesy of Google Maps.

The search giant this week released 360-degree panoramas of Hashima island, located off the coast of Japan's Nagasaki Prefecture and locally known by its nickname Gunkanjima, or "Battleship Island," through the Google Maps Street View feature. In Skyfall, the island where vengeance-seeking ex-MI6 agent Silva confronts Bond is supposed to be located off the coast of Macau rather than Japan.

"Thanks to assistance from Nagasaki City, we were able to collect imagery with the Google Trekker beyond the cordoned-off areas for tourists and into off-limits paths around the island. We also used our Business Photos technology to let you peek into the abandoned buildings, complete with ancient black-and-white TVs and discarded soda bottles," the Google Maps team noted in a blog post.

Hashima island was mined for coal for nearly a century beginning in the late 19th century and once housed 5,000 workers and their families, according to Google. It was abandoned in the 1970s but reopened to tourists in 2009, quickly becoming a popular sightseeing destination due to buildings which are "deteriorating so rapidly that you can hear parts of the concrete collapse as the wind blows from the ocean," the Google Maps team said.

Starting in the late 19th century, Hashima served as a coal mining facility and residential complex for 5,000 people. After the decline of coal mining in the 1970s, however, the island became completely abandoned, only opening up again to tourists in 2009. Hashima has transformed into an eerie tourist destination where you can see a once thriving town decaying and totally devoid of life. Apparently, Hashima's buildings are deteriorating so rapidly that you can hear parts of the concrete collapse as the wind blows from the ocean.

Meanwhile, PCMag searched Google Maps for another iconic island from the James Bond franchise?actually a pair of them?Thailand's Khao Phing Kan. Since being featured in 1974's The Man With the Golden Gun, Roger Moore's second turn as 007, this set of upcroppings near Phuket in the Andaman Sea has been dubbed "James Bond Island" and remains a tourist attraction.

It turns out there is a satellite view of Thailand's James Bond Island on Google Maps but it's pretty grainy and hasn't been updated since 2008.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421212,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05079TX1K0000993

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