Cambodia's world heritage Angkor Wat gets Google's Street View

Google on Thursday launched Street View imagery of the iconic site of Angkor Wat and some 100 surrounding historic temples on Google Maps, the tech giant firm said in a press statement. The Google Maps feature allows web users to explore 100 of Cambodia's historic temples online in 360-degree panoramic imagery. "Through this new Street View imagery, the world can now virtually roam through Angkor's historic temples, and experience the sites, structures, and carvings through rich 360-degree digital imagery," the statement said. The statement said Google used all tools available to complete this Street View imagery collection -- cars to drive around the area, the Street View Trekker to hike around the complex, and tripods to carefully photograph the interiors of Angkor's temples for one year. "With over 90,000 panoramas of new imagery, this is one of Street View's largest digital renderings of a world heritage site to date," it said. Manik Gupta, group product manager for Google Maps, said Street View could help users more easily explore Angkor's rich heritage. "We hope people in Cambodia and around the world can experience these Cambodian cultural and archaeological treasures in an entirely new way," he said. Google Street View is available in 55 countries. Bun Narith, director general of Apsara National Authority, which is in charge of protection and management of the Angkor Archaeological Park, said that Apsara was pleased to have such an extensive collection of historical and cultural sites -- more than 100 at the Angkor, World Heritage site alone -- digitized and available to anyone on the Internet. "We are looking forward to building upon this and preserving and sharing even more of the Khmer historical and cultural experience with Cambodians and people around the world," he said. The Angkor Archeological Park received some 2.23 million foreign tourists last year, up 8 percent year on year, said the Ministry of Tourism. The cultural site, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1992, is the kingdom's largest tourist destination and is located in northwestern Siem Reap province.