..Awesome new Google Maps World Explorer!
Since Google Maps has only launched street map data for Japan, China, Canada, USA, the UK and Ireland it can be difficult to locate cities and administrative regions from the Google world map for countries without this level of detail. Today, in countries which do not have street maps available, Google Maps presents vast patches of white where detailed street maps will eventually provide context to the map you are viewing.
Enter Maplandia. Maplandia helps to fill in the detail that Google hasn't had the chance to provide for these "non-street-mapped" countries. Using a directory-drill-down approach you can locate every administrative region in the world on Google Maps by geo-location, thanks to the great indexing that this site has done for you.
It, in effect, creates individual Google Maps country sites in every country in the world. To see what I mean visit Maplandia.com and choose a country from the list. When you enter the map, the page has been set up as a "Google Maps country site" unto itself!
Options on each country page include:
- A search box for populated places in that country
- A directory of administrative regions (cities)
- A list of neighbouring countries
- A link to Expedia.com travel services (this mashup has to make money *somehow*!)
- HTML code for your blog or website to link to this country page (text link, image button and map search box)
Using the available satellite and hybrid views from Google Maps, Maplandia has instantly created a Google Maps homepage for every country in the world. It's absolutely brilliant. Now Fijians, Liechtensteinians and Samoans now have their own Google Maps homepage to call home! Hopefully this will help to satisfy the Google mapping appetite for those of you that do not have street mapping for your country yet..
Happy Google Map exploring!
(Other Google Maps Collections sites can be found here)
Technorati Tags: [maplandia], [googlemaps], [googlemapsmania]
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