Brisbane River renamed in Google Maps blunder
A misnamed Brisbane creek reported to Google Maps has blown out into a much bigger problem after the tech giant bungled the correction.
QLD News
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An embarrassing Google Maps blunder has sparked confusion by turning Brisbane’s iconic river into a creek.
Eagle-eyed residents noticed the error yesterday, when the Brisbane River was renamed to Ithaca Creek from the mouth of the river all the way to Wivenhoe Dam.
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The mistake was still live on Google Maps today, causing residents to scratch their heads at how such a slip-up could be made.
It all started when 13-year-old Bardon boy Aiden Ameer saw his local creek, Ithaca Creek, was mistakenly named the Brisbane River on Google Maps, prompting him to write to Google requesting it be corrected.
It took a few months of attempts for Aiden’s request to be processed, but in fixing the error Google Maps made an even bigger one by changing the name of the Brisbane River to Ithaca Creek.
Ameer’s father Ismaan took to Reddit writing that his son “loves maps and reporting errors to Google”.
“It has always annoyed him that our creek was labelled as Brisbane River, so he reports that a lot. I guess they tried to fix it,” he wrote in the since-deleted post.
“So he has been writing to them to get them to update it.
“And Google made the Brisbane River into Ithaca Creek.”
It’s also not the first time the Brisbane River has been renamed in recent times. Indigenous rights activists have been referring to the waterway by its Aboriginal name, Maiwar.
A Google Australia spokeswoman said when there were inaccuracies in its Maps product the company worked to address them as quickly as possible.
“We use a number of different sources to accurately model the real world, including authoritative third-party sources, contributions from users, and Street View and satellite imagery,” she said.
“Overall this provides an accurate, up-to-date map, and when there are inaccuracies, we work to address as quickly as possible.
“As always, we encourage users to let us know when something is incorrect by using our ‘report a problem’ tool.
“We unfortunately aren’t able to share specific details about the time it takes to update the map, as it often depends on the type of change and how extensive it might be.”
