France unveils Google Earth rival

Géoportail.fr offers satellite images and detailed maps

The French government has launched a website which rivals Google Maps and Google Earth.

The Géoportail.fr site offers satellite images of France at resolutions up to half a metre, which is similar to the resolutions offered by Google for a portion of its images of the world's populated areas.

The French site was developed in conjunction with the Institut Géographique National and the Office of Geological and Mineral Research with funding from the government of about $7.5m.

In addition to images from aerial satellite photographs, the service also includes detailed maps. Features expected to be included in the future include geological data and 3D images.

French president Jacques Chirac said at the launch of the site: "It is a case of economics. With [European Union satellite navigation system] Galileo, and with the mobile telephone, services linked to global positioning will develop a lot.

"It is also about democracy, because our citizens have the right to know all the facts about the environment."

However, the site appears to have already become a victim of its own success. The web server on which the application is hosted can support 50,000 to 100,000 connections an hour, or about one million a day.

But a number of sites reported this has not been enough to handle the overwhelming demand.

At the time of going to press vnunet.com's own attempts to access the service have all been unsuccessful.

The Géoportail and Institut Géographique National homepages take a good few minutes to load up themselves at present. Technicians are apparently working on increasing the site's capacity.