This is a helper page to get the HTML code of a place in Google Map, so I can copy and paste it into my blog.

HTML:

Here is a list of Shanghai Online Maps.

Google Maps (Global Sattelite Image)

There is only image, with no road and map information. It is very useful if you know an area well, and want to see the details (buildings, streets), but not useful for a stranger to find the right road to take.

Google Bendi (Local)

Move the needle on the left side to zoom in. It only has Chinese version. The data is powered by mapabc.com

Mapbar.com

The head to head competitor of Mapabc is mapbar.com. It is widely used by other Chinese local website. Check this sample page. For me, it has better functions, and more accurate data.

Mapabc.com

As I just mentioned, it has exactly the same data as Google China. However, they still uses the Java technology, and requires browsers to have Java installed. So I don’t use it.

edushi.com

eDushi has a visionary idea – to draw 3-D map of all major cities. They have completed Hangzhou, Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Wenzhou, Xi’an, Changsha, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and many other cities. All the buildings were drawn by hand! What an effort!

city8.com

Real photo based map.

Wangjianshuo’s Shanghai Map

Hehe. Didn’t forget to mention my little map view. It is just a simple application with no map data. So… Just for fun…

Above are all the major map providers on the market I am familiar with. For English maps? I don’t see any really good one yet.

Updated with kind notification of Fenng.

In the last few weeks, after moving my server to IpowerWeb, the Shanghai Map Viewer does not work as it well as before. Actually, the IPowerWeb only support Perl and PHP while the previous version 0.71 was written in ASP + Access database.

In the last few days, I migrated the application to PHP version so the original links to this site is not broken. Now, only the most two baisc functions work.

1. Navigate using the thumb view.

2. Navigate via 8 direction arrows.

3. Display places names if it is encoded in URL, such as Jian Shuo Wang’s Pudong Home, or Ramada Hotel (Pudong).

4. You can add a point to the map now and embed the map into any web page.

New Feature / Bug Fix

• Changed the wording of claim to profile.
• Remove del button from the map and move it to the point profile page.
• Bug fix: now the Place Name field can be modified in Profile.asp. In 0.7, it cannot be changed.
• Added border image so broken image will not be shown at the edge of the map
• Added statistics of most populated area on the map.

  

Shanghai Map Viewer 0.7 Released

New Features / Bug Fixes:

• Added LocationReminder so people will always return to the last map location after performing actions, instead of jumping to the home page
• Title for each page fine tuned with descriptive words
• The scroll offset bug is fixed. The point is exactly the point you click even if the page is scrolled down
• Added warning and message to confirm operation. Warning is based on the four situations: added successfully, no place name, duplicate and delete successfully.
• URL enabled. You can add URL for a point now so bloggers can pin their website onto the map.
• Delete interface added to the index.asp, so first time visitor know it is possible to delete a point.
• Restore completed.

Feature Request in Future Releases:

• xmren asked for Web Service version. Well. I am planning to add it next week in release 1.0

Today, I released Shanghai Map Viewer Version 0.6. Key features (including the features previously avaiable).

• Scroll the window to eight directions.
• Thumbnail and one-click move.
• Mark points with click and add description
• Record the marks into database
• All points available for all visitors
• Wiki style editing support
• Anyone can delete previous point
• Anyone can restore deleted point
• User registration

Someone posted it to Fudan BBS and attracted some hits. I got 22 qualified points today. Good!

Future plan:

I will add the following feature in the next release version 0.7.

• Fix the bug that when the window is scrolled down, the positioning of the red point has a offset.
• Enable “Claim ownership of this point” function, so more information, like the blog URL, description, category can be attached to a point
• Find a logo and a code name for the points

Hey, check my newest Shanghai Map Viewer. It shows the details of every street and every park.

I marked my home, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Fudan University on the map. You can mark yours very soon when the back end database is finished. Do you like it?