Discover places and change your view | Google Earth

You can use Google Earth to travel the world and explore new places. You’ll find exotic cities, landmarks in 3D, and buildings up close. 

Learn how to experience places in Street View.

Tips:

• Not all Google Earth locations can be seen in 3D.
• To understand where the map images come from, learn how Google creates 3D Earth data.

Android Computer iPhone & iPad

Navigate in Google Earth

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Earth app .
2. Choose an action:
   • To find a specific place: Tap Search .
   • Move around: Use one finger to touch and drag the screen. 
   • Zoom in and out: Pinch open to zoom in, pinch closed to zoom out. To zoom with one finger, double-tap and hold, then slide your finger up or down.
   • Fly to your current location: On the bottom right, tap My Location .

Turn on latitude & longitude gridlines  

You can turn on gridlines to learn about geographic coordinates and get your approximate location on the Earth’s surface.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Earth app .
2. On the left, tap Map Style .
3. Turn Gridlines on or off.

Tip: Turn on gridlines to show the 5 major circles of latitude: The Equator, Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn, as well as the Prime Meridian.

Show 3D imagery

To turn 3D buildings and trees on or off:

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Earth app .
2. Tap Map Style .
3. Turn Enable 3D buildings on or off.

Tip: Turn off 3D buildings to possibly show newer imagery and increase the overall performance of Google Earth. 

Change the view

Choose your map style

Troubleshoot places that load slowly

Sometimes, places take time to show in Google Earth. To experience Earth images on your device more quickly, you may need to change your image quality settings.

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Earth app .
2. Tap Menu  Settings   Rendering Quality.
3. Choose a setting:
   • To increase the loading speed, choose a faster setting.
   • To improve the clarity, choose a higher setting.

Tip: While you wait for a place to load, check the bottom left to tell how much of the image already loaded.