Vietnam welcomes Google Maps fixing border error

Aug 5, 2010, 10:03 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities on Thursday welcomed Google Inc's decision to fix an error on its Google Maps website that placed parts of Vietnamese territory in China.

While Google Maps did not have any legal value, correcting the error should still be applauded, said Dang Hung Vo, deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment. 'Fixing the error not only helps Vietnam but also increases Google's prestige as the company supplies correct information.'

However, Vo said Vietnam had to take some responsibility for Google's error as it had not supplied territorial information.

In one of the errors, the displayed border line did not closely follow the river that forms the border with China in the province of Lao Cai, placing part of the city of Lao Cai inside China.

The border line was similarly misplaced in the provinces of Quang Ninh and Dien Bien, placing the town of Mong Cai inside Chinese territory. The natural resources ministry said the errors involved thousands of square kilometres of Vietnamese territory.

In March, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked Google to correct the errors.

In March, the National Geographic Society altered its maps of the South China Sea after a Vietnamese group protested its designation of the Paracel Islands as Chinese territory.

Vietnam and China have had longstanding disputes over their border, and fought a brief but bloody war in 1979. The two countries signed a Land Border Treaty in 1999, and an agreement on border management in November.

Sovereignty over the Paracels is disputed between Vietnam and China. China seized the islands from the former South Vietnam in 1974.