Thursday, May 18, 2006

Google Maps for Australia and New Zealand

Not before time, but Google Maps now features full road maps for Australia and New Zealand!

Users of Google Earth will already know that the satellite imagery available for most metropolitan areas of Australia is of superb quality, and now they've got the road maps to match!

Marissa Myers explained at the Google Press day that Maps / Earth was initially developed in Australia (via Keyhole), so it's good to see that Australians can now benefit from this excellent work.

The .com.au and .com.nz maps domains aren't yet live, nor does searching for street names or directions currently yield results. But based on the Western Europe expansion last month I expect they won't be far behind.

I expect to see a bunch of new Google Maps mashups that take advantage of this new detailed information. Though I'm now based in London, Australia is my 'home town' so I'm very excited -- here's a snapshot of the streets I grew up around to celebrate.


Man, I have to say. One of the things I was going to miss about the UK when I moved back to Australia was Google Maps. It's incredible how quickly it and local search became an essential part of my everyday life -- particularly now that they're both available on my mobile.

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