9:47 PM
Kakrona Chan
China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has launched an official online map service called Map World. It allows users to explore and search for specific locations.
The service is simple to navigate, even though it’s in Chinese. A zoom slider on the left and various views (map or satellite) populate the upper right corner. Zooming into most parts of the world will only result in a blank page after a certain zoom level, except in China and Taiwan where the images are available in higher resolutions.
The 2D part of the service is similar to Google Maps, and works quite well in Firefox on a Windows system. A 3D viewing tool, that should make the viewing experience similar to Google Earth, is also available, but it was not functional for us.
The official Chinese mapping service could spell trouble for Google Maps in China. According to Asiaone News, 31 companies have been granted a mapping license, including Nokia, Baidu, Alibaba and others, but Google China hasn’t officially submitted an application.
Still, the Google Maps service is currently available (in a censored form) in mainland China at the address ditu.google.cn.
The map is available at www.tianditu.cn or www.chinaonmap.cn.
[via mashable]
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