The Google Maps of the Week

Sometimes the best maps don't have to be particularly innovative to be powerful and effective. This map marking the victims of the Nazi Holocaust is certainly powerfully evocative.

Since 1997 German artist Gunter Demnig has been creating memorials for individual victims of the Holocaust. Demnig's stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for individual victims of Nazism. Each stolperstein is placed in the sidewalk outside a victim's home.

Stolpersteine Online is a Google Map of the memorials that have been erected. The project has created about 35,000 stumbling blocks so far. This is a very small percentage of the total number of victims of the Holocaust, however if you zoom in on any German city on this map you still can't fail to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Nazis Holocaust.


Another powerful use of the Google Maps API this week was produced by The New York Times. The Times created two custom Street View images of the devastation caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma - Before and After: 360° Views From Moore.

The custom Street Views were captured on Tuesday and have been synced with the Google Maps Street Views that were captured in December 2007. If you pan either Street View both the before and after image moves so you can compare the images around the whole 360 degrees.


This week I was also impressed by Vasile Cotovanu's polygon masking effect wizard. An app that can quickly create the GeoJSON, KML, or Google Maps API polygon code needed to create your own polygon mask.


Geomask allows you to simply draw around an area on Google Maps and just press a button to generate the polygon to create this neat masking effect. You aren't restricted to one polygon mask and you can highlight as many areas as you want on the map.

A Brief History of Google Maps

Google's 'Hello World' introductory website for the new look Google Maps not only lets you apply for an invitation to the new look map but includes a lot of other interesting information.

The site includes a 'Tips and Tricks' section which includes some interesting advice on features you might not be aware of in Google Maps. It also includes a great infographic exploring the history behind Google Maps.

In a A Brief History of Google Maps Pegman walks you through a timeline of some of the important developments in the history of Google's online map service. As you scroll down the page Pegman walks along a highway on the map showing you when features such as live traffic, Street View and indoor maps were added to Google Maps.

Where's the Path v3

An old Google Maps Mania favourite Where's the Path? is now out in a new version that has been optimised for use on tablets and smartphones.

Where's the Path allows users to compare the UK's Ordnance Survey maps alongside Google Maps or Open Street Map. The two maps are synchronised, so if you pan one map the other map pans to show the same view.

The application is a very useful resource, particularly for hikers. The Ordnance Survey map has far greater detail than Google Maps about public footpaths and other off-road features. Google Maps on the other hand allows you to view satellite imagery alongside the OS map.

Ans, for those of you obsessed about whether Google Maps or Open Street Map has better map data, Where's the Path allows you to compare the two maps side-by-side to your heart's content.

Hat-tip: Mapperz

Bob Dylan, Facebook Crimes & the CSS Map

Amnesty International in New Zealand has developed an app that analyses your Facebook timeline for possible crimes under international law.

If you connect Trial by Timeline to your Facebook account you can view a map of all the locations in the world where you could face imprisonment for your behaviour. I must remember not to post drunken messages to my Facebook wall if I'm ever in Kuwait.


It should be a crime under international law to listen to Bob Dylan. However Slate has decided to mark Bob Dylan's 72nd birthday with a map of every street, town, and city Dylan has ever sung about.

If you click on a song's marker on the Bob Dylan Map you can then click through to read the lyrics of the song or listen to it on Spotify. I was kidding by the way, I love Bob Dylan's music.


One map kept cropping up in my never ending search for maps this week. The CSS Tube Map recreates Harry Beck's famous London Underground map using nothing but HTML5, CSS3 and a tiny bit of jQuery. It uses no images.

The map was created by John Galantini, who you may know from his CSS Tardis.

A Google Map of Public Stocks

The Atlas of Public Stocks is a searchable Google Map of publicly listed companies around the world. The map allows users to locate public companies within definable distances from a given address.

If you select a marker on the map you can view detailed information about the company, including the postal and website address. The details include which sector the company is in. Probably the only thing missing on this map is the ability to filter the companies by the sector. It would be nice to be able to search the map by sector as well as by distance.

The data is there so it should be a simple task to add that option to the map.

It's Friday Fun with Google Maps

xkcd Fame for GeoGuessr

GeoGuessr has rightly been getting a lot of great coverage lately. It has now even been featured in an xkcd strip.

Google Maps has featured a number of times over the years on xkcd. I think however this is the first time that a specific application using the Google Maps API has starred on its own.

Fame indeed!

Just in case you still haven't played GeoGuessr:

The game drops you into a random Street View and then asks you to guess where in the world you are. Points are awarded for how close your guess is to the actual location.

Four Seasons in One View

Daniel Shwarz has been scanning Google Maps aerial imagery in search of locations where images taken at different times of the year have been stitched together. His post, 'Justapose', includes screenshots of a number of examples. I think the images are rather beautiful.

Street View Rock Video


It has been a while since we last featured a music video created with Google Maps Street View. Here's one from band Tereza.

It is worth watching beyond the initial timelapse sequence. Later in the video the band member's heads have been superimposed over the blurred out heads of people in the Street View images.

Via: Google Street View World

Indian Real-Estate with Commute Times

HouseinCity is a Google Maps based real-estate engine for a number of Indian cities.

HouseinCity allows house hunters to search for a property by location, price, the number of bedrooms and by the property's builder. In what I think is a first for Indian real-estate websites, HouseinCity also offers users the option to search by commuting time.

The map includes two commuting time options. 'Metro Connectivity' overlays a heat map of metro travel times on the map. The heat map shows the average commuting time for a morning commute on the metro. Alternatively, for the driving times of a commute in morning traffic, users can use the 'Project Connectivity' option.

It is also possible to display local amenities, like schools, shopping malls etc. on the map. If you select any of the local amenities on the map you can instantly view the travel time that it will take to reach the amenity from your selected location.

Find Garage Sales & Plan Your Route Map

gsalr.com is a garage sale, yard sale and estate sale listing service with a handy Google Maps interface and trip planner that can help you plan your weekend garage sale trips.

If you select a sale's marker on the map you can view details of the sale and click on the 'add to trip planner' button to add the sale to your personal trip planner. After you have selected all the sales that you plan to visit you can then click on the 'View Route and Directions' button in the side panel to open another map with a planned route and the directions to all your planned sales. 

Post Tornado Satellite Imagery - Updated

NPR has released a map showing aerial imagery of the damage from the tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma. Zoom In On Oklahoma Tornado Damage displays imagery collected on May 20th.

The map includes a tool to view building footprints, the tool can be turned on and off by clicking on the 'Hide Labels' button.


This Open Street Map map of aerial imagery also shows the devastating damage caused by the tornado in Moore.

Unfortunately the map doesn't have any zoom controls or an option to view aerial imagery of the same location before the tornado struck. The map, however, does include a dynamic URL that gives the latitude and longitude of the current view. Therefore, if you want to compare before and after views of the tornado, you can grab the latitude and longitude of a view and paste it into Google Maps.

The aerial view above shows Plaza Towers Elementary School.  Below is the aerial view of the same school on Google Maps, taken before the tornado.


Update: Google Crisis Map now also has the same post-tornado imagery. The Google Crisis Map also includes aerial imagery taken at the end of April, so users can compare the pre and post-tornado imagery on the same map.

The New York Times has also created two evocative custom Street View images of the devastation caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma - Before and After: 360° Views From Moore.

Victims of the Holocaust

Since 1997 German artist Gunter Demnig has been creating memorials for individual victims of the Holocaust. Demnig's stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for individual victims of Nazism.

Each stolperstein is placed in the sidewalk outside the victim's home. Stolpersteine Online is a Google Map of the memorials that have been erected. The project has created about 35,000 stumbling blocks so far. This is a very small percentage of the total number of victims of the Holocaust, however if you zoom in on any German city on this map you still can't fail to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Nazis Holocaust.