Google will monitor these locations and will send you email alerts as soon as updated satellite and aerial imagery data is available for these areas in Google Maps and Google Earth. You can do so by either clicking the points in Google Maps or enter the latitude and longitude manually.

The vast majority of these aerial photographs are held by the Cartographic Branch, spread across various Record Groups and series. These records date from 1918-2011, covering both domestic and foreign sites. To get started, sign-in using your Google Account and mark one or more areas of interest. The National Archives holds over 35,000,000 aerial photographs produced mostly by Federal Agencies. If you would like to know when Google Maps (and Google Earth) is updated with new satellite and aerial images of your area, or any other point of interest, they have built a new alert system called Follow Your World that should keep you in the loop. Now that Apple has joined the Maps business, providing high-quality imagery will be an even higher priority item for Google.

These images are updated every few years (or months depending on the area) and Google, in the long term, is very likely to switch to high-resolution imagery for most countries and regions. If you are inside Google Earth or switch to the Satellite View in Google Maps, you can see aerial images of your home and most other places of our planet.

Google aerial view