Google has announced improvements to its Google Maps service specifically aimed at Africa, which include many more detailed maps for more countries on the continent and inclusion of some popular business locations.
Google Maps for Africa has gone from basic maps of major roads to detailed maps in many African countries, cities and towns, these maps have since evolved to include local domains, driving and walking directions, traffic information, Street View imagery in South Africaand Botswana, and turn by turn GPS navigation in South Africa, Algeria and Tunisia.
One of the noticeable improvements announced by Google is the addition of more than 12,000 locations in Nigeria such as bank branches, ATMs, POS outlets, eateries, telcos service centres and petrol stations becoming available on Google Maps and Google Maps for Mobile.
The newly available companies available in Nigeria on Google Maps include:
- banks including Access Bank, Diamond Bank, Ecobank, Enterprise Bank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, GTBank, Keystone Bank, Mainstreet Bank, Skye Bank, Sterling Bank, UBA, Union Bank and Wema Bank.
- filling stations including Forte Oil, Oando and Total.
- eateries including Chicken Republic, Mr Biggs and Tantalizers.
- telcos services centres including Etisalat, Starcomms, Globacomm and Visafone.
As part of the announcement, Evans Arabu, program manager at Google, explained how the search engine giant’s Map Maker has been launched in every country on the continent and has seen the growth of a vibrant mapping community, with more than 100,000 unique editors contributing upwards of two million changes to Google Maps of Africa.
Arabus said: “Successful events have includes students’ mapping events in Gauteng, South Africa, the Rwanda tourism Map Up focused on the hospitality industry, ladies’ mapping events in Uganda and Ghana, Map Ups in Northern Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire, events led by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) working with EGreen services in Nigeria, and campus efforts led Africa-wide by Google student ambassadors.
“Without our volunteer mapping community who passionately map the places they know and care about across Africa, we would not have the great Maps experience that we do. We thank you for making Google Maps of Africa more comprehensive and accurate than ever.”
