The word “demo” has been spotted lurking in the terrain of South Sudan in Google Maps.
Cyber-security researcher Tim Hopper noticed the apparent glitch after researching the location of a refugee camp in the country.
The word appears just once, in a remote south-east corner of the central African nation and close to the border with Uganda.
A spokeswoman for Google said the issue had now been fixed.
“I love maps and look at them as much as possible,” Mr Hopper told BBC News.
He said he had been reading about Operation Broken Silence, a non-profit organisation, and its work with the Yida Refugee Camp.
“I ended up perusing the map of South Sudan to have some context for that effort,” he said.
“My best guess is that it was a work-in-progress that was accidentally deployed and no-one has noticed.
“South-east South Sudan is a largely ignored part of the world.”
