Put Romania on Google Maps!

In mid-2009, Romania was represented very poorly on Google Maps. We created the cause "Google! Put Romania on your maps!" and Google listened. Several months and over 16.000 supporters later, the cause sparked others (including a petition on Twitter, to which Google responded), and has been mentioned in the Romanian press and even on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Then came along Google Map Maker, which gives users the opportunity to contribute to the accurate rendering of their country's maps, based on their knowledge of the area. Now, we didn't exactly know how this works (and most importantly how this crowd-sourced content actually makes it to Google Maps itself), and it just so happened that Jen, a Maps Community Organizer at Google, contacted us and gave us some helpful tips.

Here's how the whole thing goes:

1. Visit Google Map Maker (http://maps.google.com/mapmaker) and search for, let's say, Bucharest.

2. Add or edit (more about this and a walkthrough in their Help section - http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=155661). As you create or moderate, others will pitch in with feedback (which you'll be notified about via e-mail).

3. How does your stuff get to Google Maps (and its API)? There are processes called data transfers, which are done at a certain period of time - the last one was on May 24th - more here - http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=155666. The most recent data transfer has shown serious improvement over Romania's maps.

It is now in our hands to have a say in rendering the most accurate Romanian street maps. So... Map away!

1. Romania is important enough to be correctly represented in Google Maps, and Google has now made that possible by letting users create them

2. A lot of Romanians would benefit from accurate Romanian street maps on Google Maps

3. http://dontgodizzy.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-outsource-romanias-maps.html