Add your local knowledge to the map with Google Map Maker for the United States

[Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog]

Before Google Map Maker—a product that enables people to add to and update the map for locations around the world—only 15 percent of the world’s population had detailed online maps of their neighborhoods. Using Map Maker, people have built out and edited the maps for 183 countries and regions around the world, and now, due to the contributions of citizen cartographers, 30 percent of people have detailed online maps of the places they live.

Map Maker users have mapped entire cities, road networks and universities that were never previously recorded online. These contributions have been incorporated into Google Maps and Google Earth, so the collective expertise of the Map Maker community benefits the millions of people using these products globally.

Today we’re opening the map of the United States in Google Map Maker for you to add your expert local knowledge directly. You know your neighborhood or hometown best, and with Google Map Maker you can ensure the places you care about are richly represented on the map. For example, you can fix the name of your local pizza parlor, or add a description of your favorite book store.



You can help make the map complete in other ways as well, such as marking the bike lanes in your town or adding all of the buildings on your university campus so they appear in Google Maps. We’ve seen incredibly detailed contributions from power users worldwide, including this comprehensive map of IIT Bombay. We’re eager to see you add the same level of detail to locations in the United States.


Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

To confirm Map Maker user contributions are accurate, each edit will be reviewed. After approval, the edits will appear in Google Maps within minutes—dramatically speeding up the time it takes for online maps to reflect the often-changing physical world. To see examples of what people around the world are adding to Map Maker, you can watch mapping in real-time.

In addition to opening Map Maker for the United States, we’ve added some new features for users globally. You can now get a street-level perspective on places with Street View imagery directly in Map Maker, see and edit all points of interest, and find exactly what you’re looking for with advanced search options such as displaying all railroad tracks.


Browsing all points of interest in downtown Palo Alto, California

To learn more, check out our getting started site, or start mapping now at mapmaker.google.com.

Posted by Lalitesh Katragadda, Tech Lead and Manik Gupta, Product Manager, Google Map Maker

Google Map Maker catches World Cup Fever

Can you identify this stadium? Are you crazy enough about cricket to stay up late watching the last ball of any match? Do you drive/cycle/walk around a lot and love using maps to plan your moves? If you answered yes to either or both, then come help us map all 13 venues where the cricket world cup matches will be played; on Google Map Maker. Look at this example for inspiration!

Many cricket fans will be visiting these stadiums for the first time, most of them would not have visited your city prior to this. As a true-blue cricket fan and as a connoisseur of your city, it would be great if you could map out the layout of the stadium including

• Each stand in the stadium,
• Parking lots in and around the stadium,
• Nearby areas of interest, etc.

You could add a feather in the cap of your city by also mapping out all important roads leading in to and out of the stadium from all major locations in the city (for example, the road from the airport to the stadium). You can also collaborate with other users mapping in your countries.

Considering the nature of the crowd that will be coming in to the stadiums you might also consider mapping all the waterholes around the stadium along with the best restaurants and hotels (who knows, one of these might even be hosting the teams playing!)

If you need pointers, see how other mappers are going about mapping out their favorite stadiums. And if you are too late to map one of the 13 venues, remember there are other great stadiums you can help with.


Posted by Ajith Kumar, Program Manager & Zareer K’Maneck, Program Manager

The world just became smaller: driving directions in 111 new countries

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

Members of our Google Map Maker community have always told us that the biggest milestone after launching maps for their countries is adding driving directions. A few months ago we launched driving directions in 18 countries in Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific. We have now enabled directions in 111 new countries and territories across the globe.

So, whether you find yourself in Lima, Peru or visiting Iceland or driving from Johannesburg to Nairobi, you can now use Google Maps to find out how to get around.

Driving directions on Google Maps are now available for:

Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Iran, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands Antilles, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Reunion, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, Western Sahara, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Do give it a try and tell us what you think on Map Your World Community. If you find something that is missing or not otherwise quite right, you can always map it at www.google.com/mapmaker.

Posted by Vishwajith Krishnamurthy, Software Engineer; Zareer K'Maneck, Program Manager; and Manik Gupta, Product Manager

"Turn right after the petrol pump" - Landmarks in driving directions!

Ask for directions in India, and you'll notice most people tend to prefer landmarks over road names. These could be as simple as the "coffee shop past the third traffic signal" or a "petrol pump just past the Gateway of India".

We launched driving directions for India in April this year. Today we are taking this a step further with the launch of landmarks in driving directions.

This effort was possible thanks to the large amount of landmark data that users like you contributed through Google Map Maker. Our new algorithm determines from available signals, which of these landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on importance and closeness to the turns that you're making. We now combine landmark data, counted turns ("the 2nd right"), intersection names, and road names, and try to use whatever information is most relevant and useful for the direction you're heading in.

On the desktop, we're using landmarks in two ways - to identify where users need to turn, and to provide confirmation that they're on the right track. We have also included navigational landmarks on your mobile phone with Google Maps for Mobile.

We encourage you to help us improve the landmark data by sharing your local knowledge on Google Map Maker as we strive to build the best navigation mechanism for users in India.

Just to give you an idea of what's new, the following screenshot helps you compare the before and after results for directions from IIM Bangalore to Bangalore City Railway Station

Happy way-finding!

Posted by Sree Unnikrishnan, Sr. User Experience Designer and Manik Gupta, Product Manager, on behalf of a cross-functional and global Geo team