Dutch Google Maps Mashup Roundup

NUkaart

Dutch news website Nu.nl has produced this excellent Google Maps mashup to show the latest news stories, photographs, crime incidents, weather and traffic in the Netherlands. The map would be very good if it just covered one of those categories but allowing users to turn on layers for any of these categories means that this map should be at the top of every Netherlander's bookmarks.

The news layer includes a time-line slider so it is possible to choose a date range for the news you wish to view on the map. The crime incidents are from the excellent Misdaadkaart (see review below). The weather includes an overview of weather in the Netherlands as well as an animated radar layer that shows the latest cloud cover. The traffic layer includes the latest traffic news as well as links to traffic webcams.

Every country should have a maps mashup as good as this!

Misdaadkaart

Misdaadkaart is a Dutch crime map with data from nearly every police force in the Netherlands. The site includes some pretty nifty search options. It is possible to enter your Dutch postcode and house number or your address in the search box at the top of this page, and you get an immediate overview of the last 10 crimes committed in your neighbourhood.

Crimes are divided into a number of categories, Drugs, Theft, Drunkeness, Burglary etc. Clicking on any of the categorised markers opens an information window with a link to a very detailed breakdown of the crime /incident.

Verkooppunten Trouw

Dutch newspaper Trouw has created this Google Map to show all the stores in the Netherlands where you can buy the paper. The map includes over 10,000 vendors and the paper have implemented a numbered marker clustering system to ensure that the map has fast load times.

If you click on any of the individual shopping trolley markers the name and address of the store is loaded below the map.

Douche Map

Initially I thought this was a review of showers in the Netherlands. However on a little further exploration it seems that the Dutch use 'warm shower' or 'cold shower' to refer to good or bad service that they have received.

Therefore Douche Map is a map of good or bad experiences that the Dutch have had when shopping or employing a service. Good service is marked by a thumbs up marker and bad service is indicated by a thumbs down marker. Clicking on the marker opens an information window with a link to details of the shopper's good or bad service.

It is possible to add your own retailing stories by completing a short form.

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