I don’t know if this change is new or from a long time ago, but I have recently noticed that in the world most important cities ( only on these, not in my city for example) the featured places such as monuments, theaters, stadiums and many other have a distinctive icon really very similar to the original, very well achieved , Wich allows to identify these places much more easier.
La primera vez que ví los íconos me sorprendió de buea forma, me agrada mucho que destaquen los lugares mas emblemáticos de las ciudades, así los turistas saben a que lugares ir (y los locales, los lugares que hay que evitar por lo concurrido )
I have seen them. Also here in Copenhagen. Icons in black and white that are larger (often wider) than other icons. They resemble how the places/buildings look
I believe they have been around for at least a month now. Maybe two.
This feature started about one year ago for most known places like Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace; the type of the icons was a little bit different.
Some months later and amid Covid-19 pandemic Google changed the icons and made them larger and also gray. Also the process of adding new icons was slow. Since more than two months ago, Google extended these icon to even more locations and now many landmarks in the world has an special icon that is designed based on the building. Although many landmarks still don’t have icon and we’re waiting to see their amazing new face
I was thought the gray color should be due to the pandemic and closure of most tourist attractions. But now, I’m not sure if Google will colorize these tourism icons again or not.
Also as I know, this icon designing started as a result of AR mode of the app since it helps people to find a landmark better when they’re using AR for walking. Although it is still very useful in the general use of the map and makes it easier to find top landmarks.
Another amazing thing about this feature is that when you search the name of a city, and system highlights its borders, it also makes the icons of top landmarks visible simultaneously.
And one final thing I should say is that if you have some landmarks in one of your visible lists, you may find the special icon is not stable and it appear and disappear sometimes.
Don’t we all love new features @SebaasC ? As @Amiran mentioned, the feature is not new as such, as I had also seen it before on some very high-profile tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower. But it does seem to spread to a lot more places now, so that is definitely newsworthy (and wil certainly make it to the news section of an upcoming podcast episode)
Thanks for the response @JanVanHaver and @Amiran and for the further information.
As these feature was only roll out for the landmarks on big cities , I assume that many people like me didn’t know their existense, but because we/they didn’t search more often in this cities map, and even more now that we don’t have de possibility to travel abroad as always.
Todo bien afortunadamente, ¿Tú cómo estás @SebaasC ?
La primera vez que lo noté fue a principios de diciembre 2020, andaba de curioso por varias cudades de USA jaja y ahí los ví, el D.F. cambió de nombre y ahora es solo Ciudad de México o CDMX (para que estés actualizado , aunque muchos le siguen llamando DF jaja), aquí no estoy seguro a partir de que fecha los agregaron.
La verdad es que no se si está disponible para IPHONE , pero sino lo podés ver te cuento que están muy buenos los mini iconos de los lugares más importantes!
Espero se extienda para tu sistema operativo si aún no lo tenés.!
)
As 
