

Those spots are in fact some of the city's densest neighborhoods, its favelas, or shantytowns, that blanket entire hillsides. Though they've long provided most of the city's affordable housing, government officials have traditionally considered them eyesores and literally left them off the map, condemning millions to legal invisibility.




"The right to the city starts with making visible these areas that historically were not on the map," Silva said. "Putting the community on the map says, 'These people exist, they're here, with the same rights as everyone else.'"


"For a community to be left off of the map is the equivalent of saying that the community doesn't matter," he said. "It removes a vital part of their identity."





"I love this place, I grew up here," he said. "Seeing it recognized like this, on a map, with street signs, makes me proud. I can look up and think, I helped do this."


"Before, if we went somewhere we didn't know, we'd have to go asking everyone, 'Do you know where this person lives?'" she said. "Now, we can do it like anyone else, have a street name and a number, look it up on a map, and go."

The favelas' new visibility hasn't come without controversy.

Some cariocas have complained that Google Maps exaggerated the size of favelas, giving them undue prominence while ignoring established residential districts and making the city look like an "agglomeration of shantytowns," reported Rio's biggest newspaper O Globo last year. The city's tourism secretary called the online maps "absurd" and demanded Google modify them.

The company's local spokesman responded that they had never intended to defame the city and promised to label tourist sites and forgotten districts. They also pledged to change the website's design so that the names of favelas appeared only when users zoomed in.

For decades, many were happy to simply ignore the slums.

A 1937 city ordinance decreed they shouldn't appear on maps because they were "temporary," and the middle and upper classes shrugged them off as unsightly but convenient sources of cheap labor.






"This partnership also encourages a constant exchange between residents and outsiders, and that too helps do away with this idea that the favela is a separate territory," he said.



Finally, geographers double-check it all. Street names only enter the official database if they aren't already taken, he said. Getting a zip code assigned means navigating even more bureaucracy. But it's all worth it in the end, when the street signs go up.

"It's a long process," Gentil said. "But what is important is that it is the same process the rest of the city goes through."