đź’ˇ Check out Sofia's amazing blog and this exercise here
Challenge
“Below you can see a screenshot from a tweet containing a photo. It contains all the relevant information necessary to help you find the exact location. Please identify the coordinates of where the photo was taken.”
First Look
The things that immediately catch my eye:
- the text was translated from Arabic
- the photo was supposedly taken in the morning
- the city “Kiffa”
- shadows!
- the Tweet is from 2013
Let’s investigate in the order of tangibility.
Kiffa
The perhaps most obvious clue in the screenshot is the mention of “Kiffa”, a city in Mauretania. Google Maps is our friend and allows us to get a quick feeling for the general location. We need to keep in mind that Kiffa could be a red herring placed here to trick us, but the fact that this Tweet was translated from Arabic - the official language of Mauretania - gives us confidence. The soil, architecture and vegetation look promising, so let’s keep digging. But it’s still a big city, so where do we start?
Shadows
Something that immediately caught my eye were the big shadows visible in the photo. Combine that with the time the photo was taken (“morning”) and we’ll be able to make an educated guess which direction the photographer was facing.
Never Eat Soggy Waffles 🧭
The quick and dirty way. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The way the shadows fall in the photo means the sun is coming from the left. If, as the Tweet suggests, it was morning here, left must be East! This means we’re facing South.
Shadow Maps
If you need more granularity or just want to be fancy, there are websites that let you simulate shadows - very convenient! One of these websites is shademap.app.
- We find Kiffa with the search bar
- Adjust the date and time to reflect what the Tweet reveals
- Align the shadow of a building to match our photograph
- Check where the compass points
Google Earth
đź’ˇ Because of its name Google Earth Pro, I thought for a long time that this was a paid program. It’s not. And it has some features that you won’t find on Google Maps, so it’s definitely worth checking out.
Time to get our hands dirty. This is the part that often requires some grit. But we have a good amount of clues that allow us to narrow down the search area. Let’s take another good look at our photo to remember what we’re actually looking for.
- a paved street with a slight bend đź”´
- that leads away form the city towards a treeline 🔵
- three buildings 🟣
- with a large tree behind the right two 🟢
The bad news is, there is no Street View. The good news is, we don’t need it!
First, let’s open up Google Earth and fly to Kiffa. Second, rotate the map so South is up. Or don’t, up to you. For me it’s easier to align the top of the screen with the direction the photograph is facing, but if you want to align it with the bottom of the screen go for it. And third, remember that this picture was taken in 2013! At the time of writing, Google Earth by default shows imagery from 2022. This will make things much harder for us because things might have changed significantly since then. You can do this in the top bar using the very useful rewind tool.
While at first it seemed we might have to investigate the entire city, there is really only one straight street that is leaving the city southwards and that passes through a band of trees! We can use the road bend and the treeline to make a quick estimate and zoom in for further verification.
Using the landmarks we identified earlier, we can verify that we are in fact at the right place. It might take some time and a sharp eye, but everything matches up. We have a relatively wide street with out three buildings and that distinct tree behind on of them.
Final Remarks
Another small piece of evidence that strengthens the case is that the Tweet mentions “the newcomers”. Just a bit north of where this picture was taken is the airport of Kiffa and right next to the tree is one of the few Kiffa hotels, potentially making “the newcomers” tourists. While not conclusive evidence by itself, it is a nice touch to round off this exercise. Thanks Sofia for the fun challenge!