title: Contiguous regions in web map services
body: <p>Google Maps can't calculate <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Tulcan,+Carchi,+Ecuador&amp;daddr=Ipiales+-+Narino,+Colombia&amp;hl=en&amp;sll=2.98379,-75.61733&amp;sspn=7.663269,13.392334&amp;geocode=FZNiDAAdrRte-ylN69XnumgpjjGNODOfsXMuLQ%3B&amp;oq=Ipiales,Colombia&amp;mra=ls&amp;t=m&amp;z=10" rel="nofollow">a route that crosses Equator - Colombia borders</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3aGoogle_Maps_zusammenh%C3%A4ngende_Regionen_%281%29.png" rel="nofollow">this</a> analysis from a Wikipedia user shows the regions it considers contiguous. It is possible to compute a route in Yahoo! Maps from <a href="http://maps.yahoo.com/#q=Punta+Arenas+%28Magallanes%29%2C+Chile&amp;conf=1&amp;start=1&amp;lat=-53.22247975316637&amp;lon=-71.103515625&amp;zoom=3&amp;mvt=m&amp;trf=0&amp;unit=km&amp;q1=Punta+Arenas+%28Magallanes%29%2C+Chile&amp;q2=Maracaibo%2C+Venezuela" rel="nofollow">Punta Arenas to Maracaibo</a>, but not to Alaska. </p>
  
  <p>Why does this services have such limitations? Is there a similar analysis of contiguous regions for other web routing services? </p>