I can see my igloo from there! – Google Street View adds Antarctic locations

If you ever get lost at the South Pole, don’t worry: Google’s got your back.

Street View is now on the least inhabited continent of our planet with the addition of Antarctica, meaning every continent on the planet is represented on the service. In more useful news, Brazil and the Republic of Ireland were also added to the service Thursday, along with Antarctica.

It’s really more of an example of Google’s tongue-in-cheek humour than anything; instead of the meticulous panoramas of city streets like the rest of the world (Antarctica has neither cities nor streets), hovering Street View’s Pegman over Antarctica brings up a series of blue dots, and if you move the man there, you’ll see a user-submitted photo of what that spot in Antarctica actually looks like.

Brian McClendon, VP of engineering for Google Maps and Earth, wrote about the development on his blog. Apparently some of Google’s photos of Half Moon Island were his:

I’m very proud of the worldwide Street View team and thrilled that everyone can now see places from all seven continents, including the amazing landscapes and natural beauty I saw in Antarctica, through the street-level images in Google Maps and Google Earth. To see more highlights from Street View around the world, visit the Street View gallery and start exploring!

No word yet if any penguins have complained about their privacy being violated by this development.