See Jos and surroundings on Google Earth
Until earlier this year, you would not see much if you looked for Jos on Google Earth. It was barely more than a smudge on the very low resolution satellite photos. That has changed, though — now you can count the trees in our yard and see the lines on the tennis court by our house. 
By loading the Jos data file for Google Earth I’ve made, you can see (in Google Earth) many of the main places in Jos and surrounds: the university, the old, burned out market, the zoo, Hillcrest school, Miango, Bezer home, and many other sites. (Unfortunately, the elevation information isn’t accurate, so you won’t see many of the hills in 3-D.)
If you already have Google Earth installed on your computer, you can simply click on the link above and choose to run the file with Google Earth, or to save the file somewhere and then click on it later to load it into Google Earth.
If you don’t yet have Google Earth, you can get it (free) at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html. I think it’s about 12 MB in size. The program runs best on a high-speed connection, since it’s constantly downloading photo views as you move around, but you can probably get some use from it even with a dial-up connection.
Once you’re up and running with the Jos data file, you can use the sidebar controls to turn on or off the various features. For example, you can turn off all the roads, or turn off everything and then select individual features to see. You can double-click on the place marks to go directly to them. Use the mouse to drag the view, the shift-right-arrow and shift-left arrow to rotate, and the shift-up-arrow and shift-down-arrow to tilt the view. You can zoom with the mouse wheel or the page-up and page-down keys. Check the complete list of keyboard shortcuts or view the users’ guide.
Two warnings: first, Google Earth can be very addicting! You can go view the landscape and sites anywhere in the world. Want to see what Kabul looks like? Just type “Kabul” into the search box and off you go. Zoom, pan, tilt, view the hills and roads … and before you know it your evening is gone. The second warning is that all this does take up bandwidth. It probably won’t make a difference unless you’re somewhere like Nigeria where the connections are very expensive. The good news is that Google Earth saves the images onto your computer, so you can go back and see them again without having to download them again.
Have fun!
Tags: Google Earth, imagery, images, Jos, maps, Nigeria, satellite
October 6th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Hello,
Gosh! It is amazing the landmarks one can see after all these years, we used to live in Jos between 1972 and 1975.
My father was a senior accountant in ATMN (Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria) then and we lived in Rayfield, not too far from the golf course - I could not locate that - after 33 years and without knowledge of an aerial view then, the memory is blurred.
The landmarks I remember are Hillcrest School (we considered it a rival to our own Corona School), the Old Airport which was the main airport then, I am not sure I remember Rayfield lake, or maybe it was a paddock then - there was such environmental damage from tin and columbine mining then. (All those “thens”, forgive me.)
If you can locate the golf course at Rayfield, I might be able to trace that to our old homestead, but after all these years, I do not think it would have the type of colonial grounds it once had, grazing fields and an orchard of mangoes trees.
I also remember when we could not go to our Anglican Church in town we went to the ECWA church that our maid was a member of, hosted in a primary school on the main road to Bukuru from Rayfield.
If I do visit Nigeria again, Jos must be on my itinerary.
Thanks for the drive back down memory lane.
Regards,
Akin
October 6th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Thanks so much for putting the KMZ file together! Gave me a greater sense of all we did while we were there. I don’t recall seeing Giden Bega, TH or Guerro on the KMZ file. Did I miss them? Either way - thanks so much for sharing this info!
October 6th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Good observation. I purposely omitted Gidan Bege as possibly too sensitive, and I didn’t know where Gero was and wasn’t too sure about TH — all 3 might be sensitive. I’ll check with Peter to see what he thinks.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Thank you so much - great to find St Piran’s some 45 years after I was last there! We lived in Kuru at what was then the Plateau Provincial secondary School where dad was principal 1959-62.
Jos mainly meant to me (at the age of 7 and below) Kingsway Stores for the weekly/monthly shopping foray & buying a book with my pocket money, the zoo with the ancient tortoise and crabby baboons, which was an occasional treat, and the airport - presumably what is now marked as the old airport in your file. Barakin Ladi and Yelwa clubs were regular Sunday afternoon destinations - curry lunch and swimming!
I didn’t go to Hillcrest or Akin’s rival institution but attended what would have been called in Dickens’ day a ‘dame school’, a school of some 40 pupils in the front room of a Mrs Prescott, whose husband I think worked in mining. This was grandly named Prescott Academy! They returned to Uk in around 1966/7 i think.
Thank you again for the memories. Some of our family’s vintage slides are up on Flickr: my screen name is Ruth Flickr. Some of the map locations on the Plateau pics may need a revisit now!
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I lived in Bukuru, Barakin Ladi , Dorowa 67 to 74
went to shamrock and Hill crest. Remember the saturday trips to Kingsway( the sim book shop just up the hill ) Yelwa club and the sunday curry lunches.Trips to yankari.
A great great place to grow up
Would love to hear from any body who was around at that time
pcollett@brcwestindies.com
Has any body got any pictures of Bukuru, Id love to see them
February 21st, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I lived in Bukuru, 61 to 67, firstly on the Sabon Gida Road, then latterly near the Yelwa Club, at the back of Shamrock School (which I attended). My dad was a mine engineer for ATMN. Fond childhood memories of afternoons at the Yelwa pool, those Sunday curry lunches and the weekly trips to the Kingsway in Jos.
My brother was born at Jos. It’d be great to see any photos of the area around that time too.