It would reasonably appear that here in the US, there’s only one map site: good ol’ Google. But until Google adds maps for countries other than the US, Canada, and UK, the rest of the world will have to look elsewhere. Enter the UK competitor: Multimap.com has been serving the world outside the bubble since 1996. From their self description:
Key features include street-level maps of the United Kingdom, Europe, and the US; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; and local information.
In short, it’s probably the best place to point any random set of coordinates. Example: my story about the Chernobyl tour should probably have included this street map of the region. (Yes, Google will now give me a low resolution satellite photo of the reactor, but photos and maps offer different value for different uses.)
My only complaint is that the service lacks the AJAX features that make Google Maps so great. But that might be changing. A post at The Map Room tells of a new feature for UK regions: a map overlay follows the mouse on aerial photos. Take a look at this example. Nice trick, eh?
tags: aerial photographs, chernobyl, google, map, map site, mapping, maps, maps of the world, multimap, online maps, rest of the world, road maps
