Map Maker: from Afghanistan to Antarctica

Google Map Maker enables local experts to create maps and share their local knowledge with the world. These citizen cartographers help keep maps of their areas accurate and up to date. They add missing roads and new businesses—and even map areas that have little to no data yet on Google Maps.

Today, our latest crop of countries, territories and an entire continent are graduating from Map Maker—meaning the user-generated maps of these countries will now appear on Google Maps: Afghanistan, Antarctica, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Honduras, Iraq, Norfolk Island, Saint Pierre & Miquelon and Saudi Arabia.

Here are some before and after pictures that highlight how much detail Map Maker users have added to Google Maps for these regions (as well as some time-lapse videos):

Baghdad, Iraq

Kabul, Afghanistan

Tbilisi, Georgia

Each region has an impressive mapping story—from the Georgian Government’s initiative to improve their country’s map, to the group led by six students in Herat, Afghanistan who mapped their entire city in a matter of weeks.

Thank you to the Google Map Maker contributors who create better maps for these regions and others; their ongoing efforts can be seen at Map Maker Pulse. We encourage all local mappers to continue improving the maps of these areas and the more than 180 other regions of the world on Google Map Maker.

Soviet Military Maps For Android

Offroad Navigation App for android with Russian topographic military maps at scales from 1:100.000 to 1:500.000. For many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia these maps belong still to the best available topomaps.

Usually I’m preparing custom maps using Genshtab’s Soviet military maps and other apps like Androzic or OziExplorer for android, but guys, this is an incredible app. And using bulk downloader of map tiles – there is no other app like this.

Available map layers:
• Topomaps worldwide (100K-500K worldwide seamless coverage)
• Openstreetmap (OSM Mapnik, Osmarender and Cloudemade Cyclemap)
• Google Maps (Satellite-, road- and terrainmap)

Main features for Outdoor-Navigation:
• Create and edit Waypoints
• GoTo-Waypoint-Navigation (linear distance)
• Trackrecording (with speed and elevation profile)
• Tripmaster for distance, average speed, bearing, etc.
• GPX-Import / Export, KML-Export
• Search (placenames, POIs, streets)
• Customizable datafiels in Map View and Tripmaster (e.g. Speed, Distance, Compass, ..)
• Bulk-download of map tiles for offline usage (NOT in free version)
• Waypoint-/Track-Sharing (via eMail, Facebook, ..)

Soviet Military Maps is the perfect moving map app for offroad trips, adventure travels and expeditions. You are planning cross country trips to Sahara by 4×4/motorbike or a trekking tour to the Himalayas ? With the Russian topos you have always a great alternative to other map sources. Beneath the good topography the maps include many small trails and unpaved roads that are missing in other map sets.
Attention: The Soviet Military Maps were created mainly in the 80ies and are less interesting for industrialized countries. Outside Africa and Asia you’ll find the OSM/Google map layers more useful.
Please note: This app does not provide “Turn-by-Turn” – navigation nor route calculation.

Country coverage:
Scale 1:100.000 and 1:200.000 :
Europe, Afghanistan, Georgia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Scale 1:200.000 :
Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, DR Congo (part), Djibouti, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya (part), Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia , Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka , Sudan, Svalbard, Swaziland, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania (part), Thailand, The Gambia, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Scale 1:250.000 (Local maps from USGS, Geoscience Australia, CTIO ):
USA, Canada, Australia

Scale 1:500.000:
All other countries

Map legend and cyrillic alphabet:
http://www.topomapper.com/PDF/Soviet_Military_Maps_Documentation.pdf
Soviet Military Maps Android Market Free

Soviet Military Maps Android Market

Google Maps – Ads EVERYWHERE

As the jokes were flying about how distasteful Google’s new Map’s info ad venue was, I became curious as to exactly how unseemly it really was. So I looked.

As Glen Gabe pointed out it may very well be necessary for SMB’s to take out ads defensively. Greg Sterling suggested that Google think about a Pandora like subscription so you could search ad free. For me, Google’s ads on the Map info bubble reminds me of ads on “park benches” that sit amid the fumes on street corners.

Here is a slide show that I assembled in 5 minutes to explore the possibilities. Bing is advertising on Zuccotti Park, Bank of America of course advertising on themselves, Chase is advertising on the Lexington Ave  women’s shelter and CPRProfessor advertising on the American Red Cross…. wow. You can click to see a slide show of some of these ads: