please empty your brain below

An interesting example of the massive influence of Google Maps is that in a few places it's completely invented place names that have become generally adopted. Where there have been errors, like an area of a city incorrectly named, or more rarely a "trap street"-type copyright protection with an inconsequential suburb deliberately named wrong, it's occasionally led to people adopting that name in real life use.
It's not just misplaced placenames - some are just commercial developments which Google seems to think are actually the name of the area!

Take Deals Gateway for example, which is apparently the area just south of Deptford Bridge and warrants its own placename, yet both Greenwich nor Lewisham have nothing - indeed at the resolution on Google Maps Mobile that Deals Gateway appears, all that Lewisham is seemingly known for is H&M.
Kevin beat me to it in the comment box above, but I'll also share here another Justin O'Beirne link, it's a fascinating discussion of how Google's evolving its mapping hierarchy.
https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison
When you searched for Stratford in google maps that was where you got taken to as well. Was a source of minor frustration when I was working in Stratford. I always imagined that somewhere Westfield had annoyed google hence the mislocation.

My current frustration with google maps is that at least half the time I search my now home Winchester it instead takes me to Winchester, Virginia.

Thanks for the alternatives DG.
@Medford, here's an interesting NYT article on the topic you mention of Google Maps creating area names rather than documenting them.
Google maps still does odd things when you zoom out. At a particular level the entire West Midlands disappears, nothing exists East of Nottingham, Leicester and Oxford but there are five towns in Cornwall, and Great Britain appears as a small town between Manchester and Leeds.
I lived a couple of streets away from here (Crownfield Road) when I was a student. Major Road (prefixed 'Not a' by graffiti on one of its signs, from memory) traversed something of a post-industrial wasteland between Leyton and Stratford. How things have changed.
I presume that Twickenham and Wembley get such prominence at Google Maps zoom 10 because of the sporting venues there so why not Wimbledon? Clearly that is because Wimbledon has a London postal address although it “joined” London at the same time in 1965.
My block of flats shows up in the special beige go-to building colour, and has a 4.7-star reveiw. I suspect someone downstairs is running an Airbnb.

I have never found a key to explain what that colour actually means, and who has access to the crayons.
Google has at least caught up with a nearby street name change, which may be one of my favourites of the new developments that have sprung up around the Olympic Park: Decapod Street. Stratford doesn't have much of a crustacean connection (as far as I know), but it apparently refers to a 10-wheeled loco built in the railway works there.
How honoured I am to see my local convenience shop Major Express feature in a DG post, but I do feel the need to defend it here - as a supplier of fresh fruit and veg it's surprisingly good quality and affordable, and they are always very friendly.

Depending on who I'm talking to, I interchange between referring to the area as Leyton or Stratford, but in feel, it's not really either one. If distance to Tube is any measure, it takes nearly 20 mins walk to Stratford station but only 12 mins to Leyton or Stratford International, but that's a whole different debate.

As an aside, I did notice this picture the other day of bomb damage in 1943 and wonder if it is the same location as the present day solicitors on the corner.
Streetmap for me has been replaced by Bing Maps. Zoom in enough, and you can choose Ordinance Survey maps for the country, but keep Goggle Map's slippy-map interface (and then borrow Ordnance Survey maps from some libraries when you're tired of scrolling)










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