Google on Monday announced its launch of Street View in Kenya. The launch adds the East African country to the list of other 45 countries around the world to have the Google service.
The Alphabet company made the announcement during an event aimed to "make Google work for everyone in #Kenya"
Google Street View service allows visitors to move around a any neighbourhood virtually through panoramic street-level images. The technology is featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides extensive views from various streets in the world.
The Street View will cover a few locations in the East African country. Locations which include Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nakuru, Nyeri and Malindi, covering about 9,500 kilometres.
The launch of this service in Kenya will enable people around the world to virtually explore the country via images of streets, cities and parks. The focus will be on main cities, roads and heavily visited places such as tourist destinations.
"Google Street View will bring Kenya to the world by enabling a global audience to virtually explore our cities, other urban centres and other places of interest and also bring the world to Kenya by whetting a user's appetite to physically visit a place of interest that they have experienced virtually," Kenya's Minister for Tourism and Wildlife Najib Balala said.
"By virtually or physically visiting Kenya's leading tourist attractions, we will inspire people around the world to gain a deeper appreciation for Kenya, its people, the natural landscape, and the wildlife that inhabits it so that they can visit and also support the preservation of this natural heritage," the minister added.
Launched in 2007 in the United States, the Google service has grown across several cities and rural areas worldwide. The Street View service shows stitched images which are taken by car, tricycle, trekker, boat, snowmobile and underwater apparatus.
Blue lines on Google Maps indicates that Street View imaginary is available on that section.