Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Introducing Wikia Maps


There's a new interactive mapping platform in town! Wikia Maps is a new easy to use map creation tool from Wikia, the free web wiki creation and hosting website.

The first thing to note is that Wikia Maps is not a fully fledged online mapping platform. It has similar functionality to Google Maps Engine Lite, in that it allows you to quickly add a few pins to a map and then grab the embed code to add a map to your webpage. However Wikia Maps does have an option to quickly create a map from any image. This option could make Wikia Maps a very popular amateur mapping tool indeed.

At the moment Wikia Maps provides two main user options. The first option, 'real map', allows you to add map pins to a Mapquest base map layer. You can create categories for your added map markers and you can also use your own images for the map pins. This easily allows you to add groups of markers and to select a different map pin marker for each of your categories.

The second option is where Wikia Maps excels. Using Wikia Maps you can easily create maps from your own images. So if you want to create a map of Westeros all you need to do is upload a Westoros image map and start adding pins to the map of your fantasy world.

This option should prove very popular. It allows computer game players to quickly create maps of game worlds. It allows fantasy fiction fans to quickly create maps of fictional worlds. It allows photographers to upload photos and add map pins to highlight people and other features in a picture. I can truly see this option being used by lots of people in lots of exciting ways.

If you look at the Featured Maps you can see the fun users are already having with this option to create maps with your own images. There is already a map of the Millennium Falcon, Westeros and a photo map from the Oscars.

If you want to start creating your own Wikia Map then you might find the Wikia Maps How-to Guide a useful place to begin.

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