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The Basque City of Donostia- San Sebastian was one of five cities worldwide selected for The Google Model Your Town Competition, a contest in which contestants use a program called Google SketchUp to create images of their cities and submit them to Google for consideration.

Google Earth gives computer users a bird''s eye view of much of the Earth''s surface using two-dimensional satellite photos. Thanks to Google SketchUp, Google hopes to enhance that free service by eventually having a 3D image of every building and neighborhood on the planet.

The people behind the Donostia-San Sebastian project are computer programmer Eneko Mujika, graphic designer Gabriel Garcia and arquitects Jan Wesbuer and Fermín Sarasate, also know for their work on www.zurriola.net, , gipuzkoa3d.blogspot.com, www.jan-wesbuer.de, www.estudio12.com y www.southvisions.com.

Some of the most outstanding parts of their project include the Urgull mountain, the fishing port and the old quarters of Donostia-San Sebastian.

Public voting ends May 1, 2010 and Google will announce the winning team (and town) on Google Sketch Up on or around May 15, 2010.

Google opened up the competition three months ago to create buzz and awareness and received more than 150 submissions. Google used a panel of experts, many with architecture and design backgrounds, to judge the entries on whether models were dense enough to get a true feel for what it would be like to live in the city, overall quality of the models and how much detail they provided.

Along with Donostia-San Sebastian, the other finalists are Lima, Peru; Brunswick, Germany; West Palm Beach, United States and Dursley, England.

The winning team receives $10,000 for the town''s public school district.