Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Google Maps adds India

The Google Maps team has made a huge launch of streets, roads and place names for the country of India! Take a look:



Previous to this launch India showed a vast white space with the "Map" view toggled on making only satellite imagery available. The street maps that have been added for Indian cities also show symbols for various amenities such as hotels, police stations, cinemas and more. This is a significant addition for Google Maps due to the size of the population in India that will be able to take advantage of this new mapping data. Also, expats living abroad can now use the hybrid view to zoom in and look at their home city or town. This expanded data is not yet available for Google Maps API sites, but once it is (and it should be very soon) the following sites should improve their usability and coverage for India. The Google Maps mashup activity should definitely pick up in India as well, now that there is some location context to points which are plotted:

Wikimapia (India) - Individuals will now be able to positively identify structures and places with map and hybrid views put to use. This will greatly expand the number of described places on this great service.

Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps (India) - This list should also fill up with more places confirmed.

India is now on the Google Map! :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hong Kong and Singapore have also had street maps added

Anonymous said...

Hi,
The news made my day!! :D
But I have a concern!
Shouldn't the updated map reflect in the Google API Map Views for Indian Cities?
If yes, is there any delay in the update or Is there anything we need to do to get the updated map view in our mashups?

Anonymous said...

Happy to learn this, going to New Delhi next week: let's see where is my hotel!

Anonymous said...

I really can't wait until Google Maps covers the whole Earth and you can see detailed maps of every city on Earth. That would be so cool. Keep up the good work Google!

Anonymous said...

Good news, anybody know who the source is? I see only see the Google copyright, so maybe they start making the maps themself?

vespabelle said...

How frustrating to see this AFTER my return from a 10 day trip to India!

Anonymous said...

Is it possible to see an Indian city Siwan in Bihar clearly. It will be great thank to whole google earth team. The Latitude of siwan is 26°13'11.68"N and longitude is 84°21'28.67"E.

Thanks
Anwar

Anonymous said...

Very nice work by Google. You can even get driving directions for major cities in India. Great Job Google. Keep it up.