See any place by satellite, and how it has changed

Switch any location to satellite view and see when the image was captured. Then step back through NASA's imagery to 2012 to watch lakes, coastlines, green cover and the edge of a city change.

Open the map. Free, no sign-up.

Try it on a real place

How to use it

Search for a place or move the map to it.
Press Satellite in the bottom corner of the map.
The capture date of the image appears with the map controls, wherever the imagery provider publishes one.
To look back in time, open Layers, turn on Time travel and move the slider.

Why the date matters

A satellite view is a photograph, and it can be months or years old. A plot that looks empty may be built on by now, and a new road may not appear yet. The app shows the capture date so you know how much to trust what you see.

Where the imagery comes from

The current high-resolution view is Esri World Imagery. The time slider uses NASA's public daily imagery (GIBS, from the MODIS Terra satellite).

What it cannot tell you

The time slider's imagery is 250 m per pixel. It shows reservoirs, coastlines, vegetation and large-scale growth well. It does not show individual buildings or streets.
Esri does not publish a capture date for every area. Where it does not, the app says the age of the image is unknown.