After the furore over parts of the Indian mainland being allocated to sub-continental neighbours on Google Maps, there is again a debate regarding accuracy after a Costa Rica-Nicaragua border dispute.

Google Maps has now been pulled into a controversy after a Nicaraguan general brought attention to a Google border map which he said was an ” after-the-fact justification” of a certain raid in a sensitive border zone.

The two Central American countries have not been the best of friends, and the map dispute was first reported in La Nacion, a Costa Rican news daily. SearchEngineLand, a geek blog took up the issue and found discrepancy between the maps on Google and the versions from the Microsoft search engine Bing.

After the accuracy questions were raised, with varying borders in the zone of the Caribbean coast, Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz said that if a discrepancy was found in the map area corresponding to the area near the San Juan River, a correction would be made immediately on Google Maps. She said the matter was being looked into.

Kate Hurowitz said that given the diverse global sources a Google map was culled from, an occasional error was inevitable and it was hard to go for minute-by-minute updates of these maps. But if errors were found, she said Google updated as swiftly as possible . Nicaragua has asked that Google follow the current international border line and not redraw boundaries at the behest of Costa Rica.

The disputed zone of Harbour Head looks set for a map battle.

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