Not the New Google Maps

Because of the design changes in the new Google Maps, v4 of the Maps API must be in the pipeline. I expect however that the release is some way off.

Inspired by the new index card effect in Google Maps I decided to have a little Sunday hack to see if I could create something similar. Here's the result, Not the New Google Maps.

First off to add the new look map base layer it is a simple process to add

google.maps.visualRefresh

to the javascript for the map.

Initially I decided to replace information windows with a slide-down index card. It was simple enough to create a div element for the index card and use jQuery to create a slide-down and slide-up effect for the card. Then it was just a matter of using

document.getElementById('divName').innerHTML

and a call to open the card index, inside the marker's event listener.

After achieving that however I decided to remove the example marker from the finished map.

One of the really impressive new features in the new Google Maps is the reverse geo-coding that happens when you click on the map. When the user clicks on a location on the map a card opens showing the location's address and a small thumbnail of the Street View available.

So I decided to use my index card design to achieve something similar. When you click on the map I geo-code the location and add a little static Street View to the slide-down index card. If I get the time it should be a simple enough process to add a function so that when the user clicks on the static Street View the map is replaced with the full interactive Street View.

The Google Maps of the Week

What with Google I/O and the launch of the new look Google Maps, it has been a reasonably quiet week for reviews of new Google Maps apps. At Google Maps Mania our attention has been drawn away by the live streams from I/O and playing with the new look Google Maps.

However, some great maps did get featured this week.


One map that grabbed my attention this week was from Rough Guide. One feature of the Rough Guide site that I really like is how you can drill down from general reviews of countries, to reviews of individual towns and cities and then search for great individual locations to visit within those towns and cities.

As you navigate the Rough Guide website look out for the 'view map' option that allows you to view Rough Guide recommended locations on a map. The drop-down menu above the map allows you to select individual countries and cities.

If you select a country or city from the menu then a general introduction to your chosen destination is given beneath the map and all the Rough Guide recommended places to visit are displayed on the map.


Another interesting map that came to our attention this week was España en llamas (Spain in Flames), a Google Map displaying ten years of data about the location of forest fires in Spain. The map includes data on 1,508 fires, 699,560 hectares burned, 24 deaths and 191 injuries.

If you click on the 'Explora los incendios' link above the map you can filter the data displayed on the map. The filter controls allow the user to filter the results displayed on the map by cause of fire, fires that caused deaths, by location and by the size of the fire.

A time-line tool beneath the map also allows the user to explore each of the filtered results by year. One neat feature of this map is the use of relatively sized map markers to show the size of each individual fire.

The Hand Drawn Maps of the Week

This week saw the 70th anniversary of the World War II Dambuster raids. On 16–17 May 1943 an attack on German dams, carried out by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", used a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.

The BBC has put together an interactive map that retraces the mission. The interactive uses a hand-drawn map from the official June 1943 British Air Ministry report on the Dambusters raid. The map shows the routes taken by the planes, the location of the planes that crashed and the location of the German dams.


The MapBox Blog has this week been showing off the power of their MapBox Streets with vector tiles.

Using vector tiles ensures the speed and scalability of MapBox maps. It also allows for some amazing styling of the map tiles. Using MapBox anyone can make "a totally custom branded map, of the entire globe, that is lighting fast on every device."

The blog post includes a number of beautiful examples of styled maps. I think my favourite is the hand-drawn map style (shown in the screenshot above).

Luftwaffe Aerial Imagery on Google Maps

FlyfotoArkivet LW1944 is a Google Map of Denmark overlaid with historical aerial imagery of the country taken by the Luftwaffe, under occupation, in 1944.

Just over 75% of the country is covered by this collection of historical aerial photographs; including Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.

Other Historical Aerial Photo Maps

The New Jersey State Atlas - aerial photography of the entire state taken in the 1930's
Neighborhood Change in Connecticut - aerial photos from 1934
Catbus - 1947 aerial imagery of Montreal
Old Maps of Moscow - a  large collection of historical maps & aerial imagery from the 1940's

Other Collections of Aerial Imagery

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has one of the world's largest collections of historical aerial photographs.

The WWII Aerial Photos and Maps website has a large collection of Aerial photos taken during the Second World War.

Google Maps - New Maps for Old

Ubilabs have been testing out the new look base map layer that is now available in the Google Maps API.

They have created a simple demo that allows you to compare the new look that is available if you add

google.maps.visualRefresh

to your code. If you mouse-over the demo map you can switch between the old and new designs. So far Ubilabs have confirmed the following design changes in the new base map and map controls:

No shadows for markers
Markers are slightly bigger
Simplified InfoWindow
Smaller MapType toggle
Smaller Google logo (bottom left)
Smaller TOS bar (bottom right)
Tweaked zoom slider
Saturated map color
State borders show up in higher zoom level
Buildings show up in higher zoom level
Icons for all POI places in a small circle
Major streets in cities are desaturated
New font (Roboto) used in InfoWindow
New colors for directions (route & markers)
Some area labels are light grey

Mapperz has also been playing with the new design. He created this JSFiddle page so you can play around with the code yourself and check out how things look with the new Google Maps design.

Modern Life is Rubbish

Have you ever wondered what the 19th century version of Street View would like?

No. Well I've found out anyway. Today I was rummaging around in the back of the internet's attic and came across this early prototype of Street View from 1876.


Vintage Street View is an album of some of the oldest ever Street Views. You can view the album in any browser you like but you won't get the full sepia effect unless you view the album in Chrome.


If that inspires you to take an even deeper look into the past then why not have a peak at There and Then as well. There and Then is a collection of historic vintage movies superimposed on top of the same view as seen now in Google Maps Street View.

Franco's Prisoner Work Battalions

During and after the Spanish Civil War General Franco created 541 forced labour battalions. Frankismoan Preso Batailoiei is a Google Map showing where Franco's forced labour battalions were put to work in the Basque region of Spain.

The map shows the locations where prisoners were used as slave labour to build roads, work in factories and /or on other construction projects. If you click on a map marker the information window provides details on the type of work the prisoners were forced to undertake, the number of prison staff and the dates of each forced labour project.

The map is in the Basque language. 

Hands on with the New Google Maps

I got my invite through today to connect to the new Google Maps. Colour me f**king impressed!


By far and away the stand-out feature in the new Google Maps is the integration with Google Earth  - and Google Maps users no longer need a plug-in to view Google Earth imagery in Google Maps. But so what? - With all due respects to my friends at the Google Earth Blog I've always thought that 3d maps are a bit of a sideshow when it comes to online maps.


But what a sideshow it is! Google Maps now has real-time cloud overlays and, if you zoom out, it also has real-time sun, moon and star imagery! As I almost said before, colour me f**cking amazed.

This imagery is of course stunning and will be important to a significant number of Google Maps users - but for most users it will still remain a sideshow. The majority of Google Maps users, in their day-to-day use of Google Maps, will be far more interested in the basics of finding locations, finding local businesses and getting directions.


Well you know I am biased but there is simply no competition. Google's huge, no really - unbelievably huge - data of local businesses, public transit and nearly everyone's individual search patterns means that no other map provider can come close to offering anything close to the new Google Maps.

Open Street Maps may have far better map data in many parts of the world, Waze may be able to provide far better direction data in many locations, and numerous sites might be able to offer you better local business reviews. However no other online map provider can give you anywhere near the whole package that is the new Google Maps. It simply delivers in nearly every department you want from an online map!

Of course this review is just scratching at the surface. One of the big selling points of the new Google Maps is that every user gets their own map. Google Maps now responds to every user's favourite locations, search patterns and the behaviour of their friends on Google+. I have a feeling that this is going to freak out a few tech-savy users. However most users are simply just not going to notice that their map is tailored to their needs and the technophiles are probably going to love it anyway.

Well I'm biased, I am a technophile, and I do love it!

Nature Rocks on Google Maps

The Nature Conservancy's Nature Rocks programme aims to make it easy for families to have fun in nature. To find great natural spaces to visit you can use the Nature Rocks Map.

This Google Map allows users to search for nature locations by location and by type (e.g. hiking, swimming, fishing, parks, camp-grounds, zoos etc).  After you enter a zip-code in the map search bar you can filter the results by distance and by the type of nature space that you are looking for.

Each displayed location contains an address, a website link and a link to the location's Google+ page.

Mapping Live Edits to Wikipedia

The Hatnote Wikipedia Recent Changes Map is a real-time map of live edits being made to Wikipedia by unregistered users.

Unregistered users are far more likely to make incorrect, false or spam changes to Wikipedia. Only 15% of the contributions to English Wikipedia are from unregistered users. So the map actually represents only a small portion of the total edit activity on Wikipedia.


The map reminds me of WikipediaVision, a Google Map of real-time map edits to Wikipedia.

The map displays an information window for each edit, with the title of the article, the summary of the edit (if a summary was given), a link to the changes that were made to the article and the time the edit happened.


Mapping Wikipedia is a project from TraceMedia and the Oxford Internet Institute.

Using the Google Maps API Mapping Wikipedia allows you to view the geography of all geotagged Wikipedia articles in a number of different languages. It can also create maps based on the word count of articles, the date created, number of authors, and number of images.

If you are interested about how the map was created TraceMedia has provided an outline of the tools used in building the application.