Google Maps: Weekly Round-Up

Google was very busy last week, with the launch of Street View in South Korea and the release of fresh 45° imagery in 24 cities on Google Maps.

Google Hotel Finder also started experimenting with an isochrone layer that allows users to search for hotels within a defined travelling time of a location.

Elsewhere I was impressed with the use of Google Fusion Tables in Google Maps by two newspapers.


Both the Edmonton Journal and Global News released election related maps powered by Fusion Tables.

Both maps include selectable layers and a dynamic legend. If you want to know how to create a dynamic legend with Fusion Tables and Google Maps then you should dive into the code in this Fusion Tables API Example Map.


The New York World also produced an excellent Google Maps based visualisation of the Proposed New York Senate Districts.

This visualisation of the proposed rezoning works brilliantly in map form, not only because of the obvious geographic nature of creating new senate districts but because the map perfectly illustrates the disparity in the population sizes between the up-state and down-state proposed districts.

Brisbane's CityBikes on Google Maps

City Cycle NOW! is a real-time Google Map of the number of bikes currently available at each of Brisbane's CityCycle bike stations.

The official CityCycle website also uses Google Maps to show the location of bike stations in the city. However to find out the number of bikes available at individual stations on the CityCycle map involves clicking on the station's map marker.

City Cycle NOW! on the other hand uses a coloured map marker system to show stations with no bikes (red), stations with only a few bikes available (orange) and stations with more than five bikes (green).

Neighborhoods Reviewed with Google Maps

StreetAdvisor is a well thought out website that helps people to find great streets, neighborhoods and cities to live, based on the opinions of the people who actually live there.

Using StreetAdvisor it is possible to search for a city, neighborhood or individual street and read local reviews of the area, find out what kind of people already live there and get an overview of the pros and cons of the area.

When you search for a location the area is shown and highlighted on a Google Map. When you search for a city, map markers provide links to the StreetAdvisor pages for individual neighborhoods in the city. If you search for a neighborhood the markers provide links to the StreetAdvisor page of individual streets.

StreetAdvisor also allows individuals to ask specific questions about a location. So if you want to know what the average rent is, whether the area is safe or child friendly etc you can ask the question on StreetAdvisor and get answers from people who know the area well.

The Forgotten Poland on Google Maps

Forgotten.pl is a Polish website dedicated to abandoned buildings, rail-roads, underground tunnels, castles, military sites and any other locations that have long been neglected.

The site has a huge database of user submitted abandoned locations. If you are keen to explore the abandoned Poland it is probably best to explore the site using the category filter. Each category (buildings, military, castles etc) has its own Google Map that allows users to search for individual entries by location.

Gerrymandering Shown with Google Maps

The New York World has produced an excellent Google Maps based visualisation of the Proposed New York Senate Districts.

This visualisation of the proposed rezoning works brilliantly in map form, not only because of the obvious geographic nature of creating new senate districts but because the map perfectly illustrates the disparity in the population sizes between upstate and downstate proposed districts.

The large red area to the north on the map shows that these proposed districts will each have a smaller population than the blue districts to the south of the map in New York City. In effect New York City voters will count for less than their up-state neighbors.

As The New York World states this "regional discrepancy is crucial to Republicans' efforts to preserve their narrow control of the Senate".

Ontario Election Results on Google Maps

Global News has created a series of Google Maps to visualise the 2011 Ontario election results.

Ontario Election Maps shows the results of 24,094 polls in six maps: plurality winner by poll, voter turnout and the four parties' results looked at in isolation. Each map shows a heat map of the results and you can click on individual electoral wards to view the results at that location.

The map can be searched by address or postal codes. A number of links, above the map, will take you to 14 regional views.

MetroCard Use Visualised on Google Maps

The Wall Street Journal created this great data visualisation to show how New Yorkers are using different kinds of MetroCards on the city's public transit network.

Examining MetroCard Usage uses the Google Maps API to present how the 30-Day Unlimited, Pay Per-Ride and Senior Discount MetroCards are used throughout NYC. Heat maps are created for each card type and useful information windows point out specific locations and usage of the cards that the WSJ finds interesting.

The visualisation also presents data taken after the 12/30/2010 fare increases to examine how usage of the different MetroCards may have changed after the fare rises.

An Opacity Control Slider for Google Maps

Gavin Harris has released the code for an Opacity Control for Google Maps. The control is a slider button that can be used to adjust the opacity of map overlays used with the Google Maps API v3.

The slider control can be seen in action on NZ Topo Map, where it is used to control the transparency of topographic map tiles. The code is available for download and use by Google Maps API v3 developers under a Creative Commons Licence.

Australian Rain Radars on Google Maps

BOMMap is an Australian weather map that allows users to view animations of the latest radar images from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

The initial view of BOMMap shows where it is currently raining in Australia and therefore where radar animations are also currently available to view on the map. Users just need to select one of the displayed map markers to view the latest radar animation from that location.

The creator of BOMMap has also set up a subReddit where users can submit suggestions and possible improvements to the map.

Public Alert Warnings Now on Google Maps

Google has just launched Google Public Alerts, a Google Maps based website to bring you information about relevant emergency alerts in your area.

The map shows weather alerts, public safety warnings, and earthquake alerts from US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey (USGS). For example, the map is showing right now flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings at various locations in Texas and high wind warnings for South-western California.

There is some integration with the main Google Maps site as well, although you do have to search for the alerts. For example, at the time of writing, if you search for 'flash flood Texas' in Google Maps an alert appears in the Google Maps sidebar. You can then click on the alert to get further details.

I actually think Public Alerts deserves more prominence on Google Maps. I'd like to see it made available as a layer (it could sit very nicely just under the Weather layer option in the Google Maps drop-down menu).

Via: Google LatLong