( CNN ) -- Before this week , Hasen Poreya 's hometown was pretty much off the map . But Poreya worked with a group of volunteers who call themselves the Afghan Map Makers to walk the streets of Herat , Afghanistan , over the course of several weeks , pen and pencil in hand , to fill in the details . The group uploaded the data they collected to a Google program called Map Maker , and now the maps are freely available online . An area of western Afghanistan that , according to the Web , contained only two major highways is now digitally dotted with side streets , parks and universities . `` Afghanistan has passed decades of war and misery , but now is the time to rise up and construct the country and develop the abilities for making infrastructure , bringing technologies , being up to date , '' Poreya wrote in an e-mail . He added : `` Afghanistan totally does n't not have any base map on the Internet , except old satellite imagery with a very low quality . Since we started our works we could finish Herat City , which is one of major cities in Afghanistan , and now Herat has a complete base map over the Internet . '' Google announced Thursday that the efforts of volunteers like Poreya have led to several previously uncharted countries and territories being mapped online . They are : Afghanistan , Antarctica , Ecuador , Georgia , Guatemala , Heard Island and McDonald Islands , Honduras , Iraq , Norfolk Island , Saint Pierre & Miquelon and Saudi Arabia . Google describes its `` Map Maker '' project this way : . `` These citizen cartographers help keep maps of their areas accurate and up to date . They add missing roads and new businesses -- and even map areas that have little to no data yet on Google Maps . '' The company praised Poreya 's efforts in conjunction with other volunteers and a university : . `` Striking for its charm , bustle and impressive historic architectural treasures , the silk road city of Herat , Afghanistan has until today , been nearly 'invisible ' online in digital maps . Luckily , Herat is home to Herat University , which is filled with talented , entrepreneurial students some of whom have worked together to literally put their town 'on the ( digital ) map , ' `` Google wrote in a blog post . The company added : `` This story is far more significant than the mapping of a city . It is a story of young people in a community coming together , taking ownership of their future and serving their country in a truly entrepreneurial and meaningful way . '' You can watch the changes emerge in this time-lapse videos on YouTube , including one of the mapping progression in Herat . And here 's some interesting background on maps in Kabul , Afghanistan , from the BBC : . `` At one of Kabul 's Post Office distribution centres , I saw more than 30 private and official letters . None had an exact address - just a series of vague directions . One , which had been sent from America , simply states , 'Hamid Jaan , behind Darul-Aman palace . ' '' It underscores the impact of maps . They help a country function . For Poreya , this project was about much more than cartography . He hopes to help map the rest of Afghanistan . `` It has always been my honor to help the country , which had nothing but war , '' he said . `` This is my home ... and we are all hoping one day ( to ) have a peaceful country with great honors and glories over the world . `` The special thing for me is to make known the unknown ( in ) Afghanistan . ''
Volunteers in remote countries are uploading data to Poreya . The efforts are helping YouTube map parts of the world with new details . Maps were recently uploaded from Iraq , Google Maps and Afghanistan .