Through the Secret Door of Street View

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The Secret Door is a new and impressively designed Street View portal, that can magically transport you around the world using Google Map's interactive panoramic imagery.

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about The Secret Door and there are already a number of well established sites that allow the user to explore a series of random Street Views. However the Secret Door does have a couple of very nice touches. I really like the background music and in particular the sound effect that is used when you are transported to a new Street View.


My favourite Google Maps Street View slide-show remains MapCrunch.

Like The Secret Door MapCrunch allows you to view a series of random Street Views. However MapCrunch includes the option to narrow the Street Views shown by location and by type of view. You can select to see just urban views, indoor Street Views and to define the time delay before a new Street View is shown.

MapCrunch also includes a View of the Day gallery. The gallery is a great collection of some of the best Street Views found on Google Maps.

Washington DC's Public Art Map

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ArtAround is a Google Map of public art in Washington DC.

The ArtAround map allows the user to search by type of art (murals, statues, street art, museums, etc.) and by location. The map also displays current events and festivals and public art venues. Another interesting feature of the map is the ability to filter the results by date.

A slider control beneath the map allows the user to select dates from a time-line which updates the map to show the relevant results. The slider control is a really useful tool for anyone interested in Washington DC's art history.

America's Gardens on Google Maps

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Find a Garden is one woman's mission to map and visit America's flower gardens. What started out as a personal project to create a map that would be useful in planning garden visits has now become a handy resource for anyone interested in flowers and horticulture.

The map shows the locations of all types of gardens, from small park rose gardens to state botanical gardens. Each of the gardens includes a link to the garden's website and the gardens that are indicated with a tick include the map creator's own photographs and ratings of the garden.

The Wonderful Worlds of Minecraft

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TopoMC is busy recreating the map of the United States using the online block building game of Minecraft.

A number of American cities and regions have already been mapped using Minecraft and data from the U.S. Geological Survey. TopoMC uses the National Elevation Dataset and the National Land Cover Dataset to automatically generate Minecraft maps of cities and regions.

The TopoMC website includes links to download the already created world files into Minecraft or to view the cities and regions in Google Maps. The screenshot above shows the Google Map of New York City recreated in Minecraft using TopoMC.

Also See

Westocraft Mincraft Map - the fictional world from A Song of Ice and Fire
Crafting Azeroth - the World of Warcraft map in Minecraft

The Google Maps Bar Crawl Planner

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The City Swig is a handy guide to the best bar specials, beer prices, and liquor prices in Richmond, Virginia.

If you are heading out for a night on the town then you can use The City Swig to find the best possible route taking in the cheapest beer or liquor. The route planner lets you choose the day of the week and the area of Virginia that you wish to visit and then produces a handy Google Map showing the bars and stores offering the best deals.

How Big is Google Maps?

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Recently the Google Maps API added the option to allow polygon shapes on Google Maps to be set to draggable. If the polygon property is set to true, the user can then drag the shape over the map.

Google created a popular game, they called Mercator Puzzle, to demo the new draggable polygon option. The game set the geodesic property of the polygons to true, which means the game provides a great insight into the Mercator projection. It is very noticeable in the game how the polygons resize as you drag north and south on the map.

How big is Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania? also makes use of draggable polygons with the geodesic property of the polygons set to true. In this case it allows the user to drag a polygon of Lake Tanganyika around on Google Maps and see how it compares in size when placed over other locations.

The app comes with all the code so you can create your own example using shape files of other locations. The effect is very similar to (and is even called a 'customisable mimic' of) the BBC's Dimensions project How Big Really?.

The BBC Dimensions projects allows you to move polygons of important places and events around on Google Maps and overlay them on other locations to help give you a sense of scale of these locations.

Extreme Weather on Google Maps

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From the major flooding in Australia to Hurricane Sandy in the US 2012 seems to have been a year when much of the world was effected by extremes of weather of some sort or another.

CBC News in Canada has created a time-line of 2012 that maps occurrences of extreme weather and the natural disasters that struck during the last year. The Extreme Weather and Natural Disasters Map uses the Google Maps API with the Simile Time-line library.

The time-line is located beneath the map and can be controlled by dragging with your mouse left to right. As you scan through the year on the time-line the map markers are adjusted on the map to show the extreme weather and natural disasters that occurred during those dates. 

The markers are colour-coded to indicate the type of weather or natural disaster recorded and you can click on any of the markers to read more about each incident. Each incident also includes a link to click-through and read the CBC News report about the extreme weather or natural disaster.

Living Streets on Google Maps

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Living Streets is a UK charity that promotes the idea of "safe, attractive, enjoyable streets where it’s great to walk". Since 1929 the charity has promoted the rights of pedestrians and campaigned on issues to promote pedestrian safety.

The Living Streets websites features a prominent Google Maps application that allows users to view their own street in Street View. The Street View feature is a great way for the charity to personalise the user's experience of the Living Streets website and I'm sure helps convert casual visitors to the website into registered users.

Washington DC's Public Art Map

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ArtAround is a Google Map of public art in Washington DC.

The ArtAround map allows the user to search by type of art (murals, statues, street art, museums, etc.) and by location. The map also displays current events and festivals and public art venues. Another interesting feature of the map is the ability to filter the results by date.

A slider control beneath the map allows the user to select dates from a time-line which updates the map to show the relevant results. The slider control is a really useful tool for anyone interested in Washington DC's art history.

America's Gardens on Google Maps

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Find a Garden is one woman's mission to map and visit America's flower gardens. What started out as a personal project to create a map that would be useful in planning garden visits has now become a handy resource for anyone interested in flowers and horticulture.

The map shows the locations of all types of gardens, from small park rose gardens to state botanical gardens. Each of the gardens includes a link to the garden's website and the gardens that are indicated with a tick include the map creator's own photographs and ratings of the garden.

Dutch Elm Trees on Google Maps

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The Planning Department of the City of Amsterdam has created a number of interesting Google Maps, all of which can be found in the Interactieve Kaarten section of their website.

The maps cover a range of subjects of interest to local citizens, including housing, green spaces, climate and building use. For example the Elm Map plots the location of elm trees in the city. It is possible to select to view elm trees in the city by trunk diameter and also to mouse-over individual trees to determine their genus type.

There are a many more maps to explore on the site and all the data used in the maps is also available at Open GEO-Data. 

Washington DC's Public Art Map

To contact us Click HERE

ArtAround is a Google Map of public art in Washington DC.

The ArtAround map allows the user to search by type of art (murals, statues, street art, museums, etc.) and by location. The map also displays current events and festivals and public art venues. Another interesting feature of the map is the ability to filter the results by date.

A slider control beneath the map allows the user to select dates from a time-line which updates the map to show the relevant results. The slider control is a really useful tool for anyone interested in Washington DC's art history.

America's Gardens on Google Maps

To contact us Click HERE

Find a Garden is one woman's mission to map and visit America's flower gardens. What started out as a personal project to create a map that would be useful in planning garden visits has now become a handy resource for anyone interested in flowers and horticulture.

The map shows the locations of all types of gardens, from small park rose gardens to state botanical gardens. Each of the gardens includes a link to the garden's website and the gardens that are indicated with a tick include the map creator's own photographs and ratings of the garden.

Top 10 Animals Found in Street View

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Google Street View World has put together a cool slideshow of the best shots of animals found in Google Maps Street View. They were also kind enough to let me reproduce the slideshow on Google Maps Mania.

Google Street View World has been collecting the weird and wonderful sights that can be found in Street View for a number of years so they have a great back catalogue of amazing finds. I'm hoping that we can turn this into a regular feature of slideshows around different themes.

I've had to reduce the size of the slideshow to fit into a Google Maps Mania post. So to see the skideshow in its full glory make sure you check it out on Google Street View World.

The Week in Maps

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Creeping in at the end of this week Buzzfeed's 38 Maps You Never Knew You Needed probably just scraped in as the most shared map story on the internet this week.

It is an eclectic and interesting mix of maps, ranging from a map of the world's seas and land masses inverted (pictured) to a Super Mario inspired map of the world.


The Guardian this week posted a map showing The Twitter Languages of New York. The map shows the languages used by New Yorker's when posting to Twitter. The map was created by the University College London and includes a link to view a similar map of London's Twitter languages.


Two of the biggest news stories this week involved meteorites. The Guardian (once again) this time teamed up with CartoDB to create a map of Every Meteorite Fall on Earth. CartoDB has also created a screencast about how the map was created.


The most interesting online map I came across this week however was this Contour Lines Density Map. The map takes an innovative approach to visualising 'stop and frisk' incidents carried out by the police in New York.

To draw attention to the neighborhoods where stop and frisks happened most frequently elevation contours are used to show the density of the stops.

America's Gardens on Google Maps

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Find a Garden is one woman's mission to map and visit America's flower gardens. What started out as a personal project to create a map that would be useful in planning garden visits has now become a handy resource for anyone interested in flowers and horticulture.

The map shows the locations of all types of gardens, from small park rose gardens to state botanical gardens. Each of the gardens includes a link to the garden's website and the gardens that are indicated with a tick include the map creator's own photographs and ratings of the garden.

The Maths Universe on Google Maps

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Did you know you can use the Google Maps API as a navigation menu for your website? The Khan Academy do. They have used the Google Maps API, with Google Sky map tiles, to create a menu for a series of mathematics exercises.

The sky map is overlaid with a series of maths exercises set out in the form of a constellation. Users can click on any of the maths areas and they will be taken to a number of interactive maths tests in the chosen area.

Also See

Edte.ch Maths Maps

Hat-tip: Google Street View World Map

Google Maps is now available for iPhone

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(Cross posted on Official Google Blog)

People around the world have been asking for Google Maps on iPhone. Starting today, we’re pleased to announce that Google Maps is here—rolling out across the world in the Apple App Store. It’s designed from the ground up to combine the comprehensiveness and accuracy of Google Maps with an interface that makes finding what you’re looking for faster and easier.

The app shows more map on screen and turns mobile mapping into one intuitive experience. It’s a sharper looking, vector-based map that loads quickly and provides smooth tilting and rotating of 2D and 3D views. The search box at the top is a good place to start—perhaps by entering the name of a new and interesting restaurant. An expandable info sheet at the bottom shows the address, opening hours, ratings and reviews, images, directions and other information.


At the heart of this app is our constantly improving map of the world that includes detailed information for more than 80 million businesses and points of interest. Preview where you want to go with Street View and see inside places with Business Photos to decide on a table or see if it’s better at the bar. To get you there, you’ve got voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation, live traffic conditions to avoid the jams and if you want to use public transportation, find information for more than one million public transit stops.



The world around us is constantly changing and, thanks to feedback from you, we make tens of thousands of daily updates to keep Google Maps accurate and comprehensive. Here’s a helpful hint for the new app: if you see something off, simply shake your phone to send us feedback.

To complete the Google Maps ecosystem, we’re also releasing the Google Maps SDK for iOS, and a simple URL scheme to help developers use Google Maps when building their beautiful and innovative apps.

The new Google Maps app is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch (4th gen) iOS 5.1 and higher, in more than 40 countries and 29 languages, including Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Please note some of the features mentioned in this post aren’t available in all countries.

Visit the App Store today and download the new Google Maps app. We believe this delightful new experience is a great starting point—and we’ll continue to improve Google Maps for you, every day.

Posted by Daniel Graf, Director, Google Maps for Mobile

Count down to Christmas Eve with Google Santa Tracker

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(Cross posted on the Official Google Blog)

While millions of people eagerly await Christmas Day, Santa and his elves are keeping busy at the North Pole. They’re preparing presents, tuning up the sleigh, feeding the reindeer and, of course, checking the list (twice!) before they take flight on their trip around the world.

While we’ve been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve. On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes. You’ll be able to follow him on Google Maps and Google Earth, and get his stats starting at 2:00 a.m. PST Christmas Eve at google.com/santatracker.

Simulating Santa's path across the world—see it live Dec 24
In addition, with some help from developer elves, we’ve built a few other tools to help you track Santa from wherever you may be. Add the new Chrome extension or download the Android app to keep up with Santa from your smartphone or tablet. And to get the latest updates on his trip, follow Google Maps on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

Get a dashboard view of Santa's journey on Google Maps
The Google Santa Tracker will launch on December 24, but the countdown to the journey starts now! Visit Santa’s Village today to watch the countdown clock and join the elves and reindeer in their preparations. You can even ask Santa to call a friend or family member.

We hope you enjoy tracking Santa with us this year. And on behalf of everyone at Google—happy holidays!

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth

Tips for getting the most from Google Maps on iPhone

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(Cross posted to Official Google Blog) 

We hope you’ve had a chance to try the new Google Maps app for iPhone (announced last week and available for download in the Apple App Store). The app is designed to be simple—just to work whenever you need it. Still, we have a few tips to make finding things with Google Maps even faster and easier. All the tips are collected on our site but here a few of my favorites:

• Swipe to see more. In Google Maps a wealth of information is often just a swipe away. Whether you’re looking at search results or directions, you can swipe the bottom info sheet left and right to see other options. To get more details on any of the results, swipe that info sheet upward (or just tap it—that works too). Even with the info sheet expanded, you can swipe to see those other results.

• Place a pin. Get more information about any location by just pressing and holding the map. The info sheet that pops up tells you the address, lets you save or share the place, and best of all, brings up...

• Street View. By far the easiest way to get to Street View is placing a pin. Tap the imagery preview on the info sheet to enter into Street View, then explore! I recommend the look-around feature (bottom left button) which changes what you’re looking at as you tilt and move your phone.

Want to learn more? See the rest of our tips on the site. And as you explore the app on your own, share your own tips using #googlemaps. Most of all, enjoy discovering your world.


Posted by Vicky Tait, Consumer Operations, Google Maps

Follow Santa live on Google Santa Tracker

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The North Pole air traffic control elves have just notified us that Santa has taken off! For the next day, you can visit the Google Santa Tracker to see where Santa’s headed next and keep tabs on how many presents he’s delivered. You can also keep up with him on your smartphone and tablet with the Android app, in your browser with the the Chrome extension, and even in 3D with Google Earth and Google Earth mobile (look for it in the Tour Guide feature with the latest version of Google Earth).



And follow Google Maps on Google+, Facebook and Twitter to get up-to-the-minute details on Santa’s journey around the world.

Ho ho ho! Happy holidays everyone!


Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth

Never ass-ume

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Over the last 24-hours concerned members of the public and the media have been speculating on the fate of a donkey pictured in Street View in the Kweneng region of Botswana.

Because of the way our 360-degree imagery is put together, it looked to some that our car had been involved in an unseemly hit and run, leaving the humble beast stranded in the road.

As our imagery below shows, the donkey was lying in the path - perhaps enjoying a dust bath - before moving safely aside as our car drove past. I’m pleased to confirm the donkey is alive and well.

Images 1 & 2: our car, driving on the left hand side, approaches the donkey lying down in the road.



Image 3: the donkey gets up and moves aside.



Image 4: a shot taken from the back of our car shows the curious animal back on its feet.



I hope you continue to enjoy some of the spectacular images of Botswana and its wildlife, big and small.

Posted by Kei Kawai, Group Product Manager, Google Maps

Discover Israel on Google Maps

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Last April we released panoramic imagery of sites and streets in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv-Jaffa via the Street View feature of Google Maps. Since then, people from all over the world have explored historical and cultural sites such as the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa and the beaches of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

Today, as part of our ongoing effort to make Google Maps even more comprehensive and accurate, we’re publishing street-level imagery of hundreds more cities, towns, villages, heritage sites and tourist attractions across Israel.

You can now virtually tour the picturesque city of Safed in the North, the coral reef in Eilat in the South, visit the lowest point on earth at the Dead Sea, and wander around the narrow passageways of the old city of Acre.

Visit Tiberias, one of Judaism’s four holy cities; the Sea of Galilee where, according to the Gospels, Jesus walked on water; and stop off at Capernaum, the ancient fishing village believed to be the home of St. Peter, or the ancient battle site of Tel Meggido, better known as Armageddon.


View Larger Map
Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee
The ancient Nabataean cities of Mamshit and Shivta, both of them UNESCO world heritage sites, can also now be seen directly in Google Maps. Tour around the Bet She’an National Park, one of the world’s largest archaeological sites; the Crusader fortress overlooking the excavations at Tzippori; or the sandstone and copper-rich nature reserve at Timna. Enjoy the colorful Druze market town of Daliyat El Carmel, the Bedouin town of Rahat, or take a ride down the ‘Burma Road’, a makeshift bypass road to Jerusalem built in 1948.


View Larger Map
The 'Mushroom' red sandstone rock formation at Timna
Sports fans can even go inside Ramat Gan Stadium or Bloomfield. And museum lovers can take in Haifa’s National Museum of Science, Technology & Space, the Holocaust Museum at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, the Ghetto Fighters Museum at Kibbutz Lochamei Ha’getaot, the Museum of Bedouin Culture in the Negev desert, or take a tour around the Egged Bus Museum.

We’ve added imagery from cities, towns and villages including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva, Bnei Brak, Eilat, Isfyia, Kfar Qasem, Kiryat Gat, Nazareth, Netanya, Ofakim, Petah Tikva, Rishon LeTsiyon, Sderot, Tira, and many, many more. And stay tuned - we hope to expand coverage to still more of the region’s sites, streets, cities and towns in the future.

Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager

Responding to the severe flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia

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(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google.org Blog.)

The Google Crisis Response team has assembled a resource page to help track affected areas and provide updated emergency information for the millions affected by flooding in Jakarta. We also have a mobile page with emergency contact numbers and lists of shelters, and enhanced search results on google.co.id to provide information directly when people search. We’ve also included this information in our FreeZone service to reach affected users on feature phones.

On both the page and map, which are available in English and Bahasa Indonesia, you'll see an update on flood locations and related data such as traffic conditions in areas affected by the flooding.



To share the page or embed these maps on your own site, click "Share" at the top of the page.

We’ll update the content as more information becomes available.

Posted by Alice Bonhomme-Biais, Software Engineer, Google Crisis Response

Through the tunnel and onto the field...see inside the Indianapolis Colts stadium on Google Maps

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The Super Bowl is over, the lockers are cleared out and the players have gone home, but passionate football fans across the U.S. are already counting the days (202 to be exact!) until the 2013 kickoff of the National Football League (NFL). What will we do with our Sundays for the next 6 months?!

To fill the football void, you can turn to Google Maps. Where, starting today, you can take a VIP, 360-degree interactive photo tour of Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. This is the first imagery of inside an NFL stadium in Google Maps, and another example of how we’re working hard (and having fun!) building the most comprehensive, accurate and usable map of the world -- complete with imagery from inside your favorite sporting venues.


View Larger Map The large Colts helmet at mid-field is a key focal point for all Colts fans
With this new interactive, 360 degree imagery, you can march out of the tunnel and down the field towards the end zone, just like Andrew Luck did all season. Or check out the Colts’ locker room where Head Coach Chuck Pagano gave his memorable post-game locker room speech on November 4, after an inspirational win against the Miami Dolphins. You can also explore the stadium’s three concourses and suites, including the Quarterback Suite, a Field Level Suite and Loge-Level Suite.


View Larger Map The official locker room of the Indianapolis Colts
Together with the Colts and Lucas Oil Stadium, we’re thrilled to give you, the fans, a behind-the-scenes look at the home of the Colts, and enable anyone to “visit” the stadium from wherever they may be.

Check out the stadium images by searching for “Lucas Oil Stadium” or “Colts Stadium” in Google Maps on your browser, Android or iPhone app or visit the Street View Gallery. And be sure to check out Colts.com for more details.

Posted by Evan Rapoport, Product Manager, Google Maps