Google Maps is one of the most widely used navigation services in the world, but in case you didn’t know – the maps didn’t appear by magic. Most of the locations and places you find on Google Maps have been painstakingly added by people using Google Map Maker. So far, the Map Maker service has only been available in other parts of the world. Folks in the US didn’t have the power to edit locations or add places that weren’t there before.
That is, until today. Google has just announced that Google Map Maker is now available in the US. Aspiring cartographers or people who just want to fix the name of their favorite corner shop restaurant/hang out now have the ability to do so. Any changes or additions to the maps will be approved by a team of moderators before they are published to the live Google Maps service for everybody to use, so you can’t simply add mini golf courses to places that never had them in the first place.
In addition to just mapping out locations, users can use Street View to help out with their cartography – after all it’s much easier to mark something out when you see visual footage of something before you edit it. If you’re interested in helping to map out the USA, find out more here or start mapping straightaway at the Map Maker site.