How to Identify Asian Countries in Street View

Asia is the largest and most populous continent, covering an enormous range of climates, cultures, and landscapes. From the frozen tundra of Siberia to the tropical beaches of Thailand, identifying Asian countries in LostStreet requires a solid understanding of each sub-region's unique visual signatures.

East Asia

Japan

Japan is one of the most recognisable countries in street view games. Key clues:

• Left-hand traffic.
• Extremely dense clusters of power lines and cables on wooden poles — unlike anywhere else in the world.
• Japanese script (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji) on signs.
• Vending machines on almost every street corner.
• Distinctive red torii gates near Shinto shrines.
• Very clean, well-maintained roads and infrastructure.

South Korea

• Right-hand traffic.
• Hangul script — blocky characters with circles and lines, unique to Korea.
• Korean flag (Taegukgi) — white with a red and blue yin-yang symbol and black trigrams.
• Modern, dense urban areas with distinctive apartment block clusters.
• Mountains visible in the background in most locations.

China

• Right-hand traffic.
• Simplified Chinese characters on all signs.
• Red flags with yellow stars (Chinese national flag) on government buildings.
• Very wide roads in urban areas.
• Green electric vehicle license plates are increasingly common.

Southeast Asia

Thailand

• Left-hand traffic.
• Thai script — very distinctive circular, flowing letters unlike any other script.
• Buddhist temples (wats) with golden spires.
• Red, white, and blue striped flag.
• Motorbikes and tuk-tuks everywhere.

Vietnam

• Right-hand traffic.
• Latin script with extensive diacritical marks (Vietnamese uses a modified Latin alphabet).
• Red flag with a yellow star.
• Extremely dense motorbike traffic in cities.
• Narrow shophouse buildings (tube houses) in urban areas.
• Terraced rice fields in northern mountainous regions.

Indonesia

• Left-hand traffic.
• Latin script (Indonesian uses standard Latin alphabet).
• Red and white flag (simple bicolour).
• Tropical vegetation — palm trees, dense jungle.
• The Google camera is sometimes mounted on a motorbike.
• Distinctive Indonesian mosque architecture (domed mosques with minarets).

South Asia

India

• Left-hand traffic.
• Multiple scripts visible — Devanagari (Hindi), Tamil, Telugu, Bengali depending on region.
• Saffron, white, and green tricolour flag with blue Ashoka Chakra.
• Auto-rickshaws (tuk-tuks) are ubiquitous.
• Colourful hand-painted signs and advertisements.
• Cows on the road in many areas.

Central Asia

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all use Cyrillic script and share Soviet-era infrastructure. Key differentiators:

• Kazakhstan: Flatter terrain, more industrialised, better road quality due to oil wealth.
• Kyrgyzstan: Very mountainous — dramatic peaks visible in the background.
• Uzbekistan: More desert landscape, distinctive Islamic architecture (blue-tiled mosques and madrasas).