Where was this picture taken?

October 27, 2007 10:41 AM

Can anyone tell me where this picture was taken? http://www.widelec.org/stuff/widoki/widoki_26.jpg And, for extra credit: is there any better way to find the answer to this sort of question?

Both the web address on the picture and the web address of the picture seem to be dead ends, although the one ON the picture does take you to a lot of other beautiful aerial shots.

I found the picture on FFFFound! which seems to be a hip new way of separating pictures from their contexts.

posted by CrunchyGods to travel & transportation (9 comments total)

Looks like this.
posted by bru at 10:50 AM on October 27, 2007

Hmm. I don't think that's it. The buildings have much more intricate ornamentation than those of Shibam.
posted by CrunchyGods at 11:08 AM on October 27, 2007

Yemen, indeed. (City of Sana’a, old town, door of Bab El Yemen.)

That address on the picture led me to this site, and I just clicked through all the countries (OK, countries likely to have a mosque until I found it).
posted by mattbucher at 11:08 AM on October 27, 2007

It's Sana'a, capital of Yemen.

(wiki)
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:10 AM on October 27, 2007

You got the country right, but not the city, I think. Here it is on the original site.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2007

Wonderful! Thanks.
posted by CrunchyGods at 11:27 AM on October 27, 2007

Extra special Mach5-is-bored-on-a-rainy-Saturday Google map of the site. Sweet Google Earth KML with your picture in it. Those white towers in the back is the Al Gami al-Kabir Grand Mosque, build in 630 AD when Muhammad was still alive.
posted by Mach5 at 12:10 PM on October 27, 2007

Johnny Assay, that's the same page mattbucher linked to. It says "City of Sana'a" at the bottom.

is there any better way to find the answer to this sort of question?

Well, if you're me, you immediately recognize it as Sana'a. Easy. (Honestly, I was just lucky.) I would do much as others have here and try to assemble what information I can from the photo itself, including the name and any source information. The main way I use Google Earth is to find an aerial-view context for various news stories or photos or Wikipedia articles I come across, so I get practice that way, too.

Apropos of little else except bru's mistaken tangent, here's a 3-D computer-generated flyover of Shibam, courtesy of one of the international programs for restoring and preserving it.
posted by dhartung at 2:07 PM on October 27, 2007

Damned y. I thought it was a g.
posted by cashman at 4:26 PM on October 27, 2007