

China's Google Maps (zoom out for best effect) - pc
http://shanghai.edushi.com/

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jmatt
Looks like SimCity.

I think the look adds something to the map. It's a bit easier to parse and
understand than satellite images and adds more information than a standard
overhead map.

For those of us who don't read Chinese - what's the story behind this map?
[EDIT: Wording]

~~~
siong1987
This is the real map of Shanghai in 3D. If you noticed the three buttons at
the top right of the frame, the first one is for 3D display. Second one is for
2D display. Last one is for satellite pics.

These are so much info that I can parse from the map.

~~~
jaaron
Just to be clear, the 2D map and the satellite pics are from the _actual_
Google Maps for China:

<http://ditu.google.com/>

~~~
jimmybot
What? Google makes a custom political map for China? A couple of years ago,
they used to claim that they don't make custom products for any market and
product rollouts are always worldwide.

Compare with:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Taiwan&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.724817,66.621094&ie=UTF8&ll=22.71539,121.069336&spn=20.138545,33.310547&z=5)

Note that it's not just a matter of translation. First, they list Taiwan next
to Hong Kong and Macau as if it's a peripheral part of China (this is surely
China's wish, but the reality is that Taiwan is an independent democracy).

Then, there's a line in the water to the east of Taiwan and extending
elsewhere whose sole purpose is to imply regions to be part of China's
territory that are not or are controversial. This line isn't used anywhere
else in the world, such as say, in the Caribbean, where the boundaries of
different islands might not be clear.

I guess Google wants market share in China bad enough that they are willing to
proffer multiple versions of truth.

~~~
tutwabee
This actually might not be a custom product. The website that is hosting this
map could be using the Google Maps API with their own map of China.

Would you call the special Google News censorship for China a custom product?

~~~
jimmybot
I actually had something specifically in mind. Google Taiwan had to fight to
get special options onto the search page that could limit searches to
Taiwanese websites ( <http://www.google.com.tw/> ). Otherwise, most Mandarin
language searches would be overwhelmed by results from China. The strong
resistance they encountered at the time was that Google insisted on products
being rolled out worldwide in a single version, minus minor variations like
translations.

It's also a question of ethics in this case. This is about data that Google is
directly providing, not simply a matter of ranking or showing/not showing
websites in their results. It's not serving the user a purple background
because they like purple. Think about another possible case--would it be right
for Google to draw Israel as occupied Palestine in countries where the
majority of people might hold that point of view?

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bd
Awesome. And there are plenty more cities linked from the frontpage (just
hover over blue links in two rows):

<http://edushi.com>

For example:

<http://beijing.edushi.com>

<http://hongkong.edushi.com>

Some even have tiny animations - cars, balloons, zeppelins, helicopters,
fireworks, flying houses:

<http://guangzhou.edushi.com>

<http://xiamen.edushi.com>

<http://sz.edushi.com>

<http://dalian.edushi.com>

<http://www.3dyiwu.com>

It seems like balloons and zeppelins are actually carrying banner ads (I don't
speak Chinese).

\------

Edit: I found the company that did it - Aladdin Information & Technology -
with some English explanations:

 _"Aladdin has a dedicated staff of 400 focused on delivering 2D maps to
creation of 3D models."_

<http://www.aladdincn.com/en/Cooperation.html>

~~~
mmilo
Yeah there are clickable ads within the map, a lot of the billboards seem to
be clickable, which is really quite clever if they're selling that ad space.

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knowtheory
Ah Shanghai, the only city i know of that has an elevated high way with
roundabouts (check the lower left edge of the map).

That and the spiral onramp to the high tension bridge over the river.

~~~
jaytee_clone
Oh yeah, I remember those.

Traffic bottle neck, prone to accident. A horrible idea probably as a result
of laziness.

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kennyroo
Such a beautiful product. Really shows how a web product can be practical and
artistic. Very well done.

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mahmud
I have lived in Shanghai, and boy do I want to live in _this_ virtual Shanghai
(the real one, only for sentimental reasons.)

For me, the best city in China remains Hangzhou, maybe Xiamen :-) the most
chill, laid back places in the east of the country (Kunming, Guilin and Hainan
Island are all gorgeous)

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maclifer
Fascinating. I have never seen such dense development before. It looks
beautiful and perfect, of course, until you start to jam everyone into it. :)

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jpwagner
I like how McDonalds gets its own button

~~~
papersmith
That's part of their business model. They also put virtual billboards on prime
"real estates".

------
est
China's Google Street View: Beijing: <http://bj.city8.com/> Chengdu:
<http://cd.city8.com/> etc.

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winanga
Also for Hong Kong - <http://hongkong.edushi.com/>

~~~
jaaron
Makes it clear just how dense Hong Kong is, even compared to other Chinese
cities.

Do you happen to live in Hong Kong?

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andrewljohnson
This is maybe the second-best GMap I've ever seen, next to wunderground.com.
And I follow these things closely since I run a GMap website too.

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ridertech
Awesome - I'm going to Shanghai in the fall and this is very fun to pan
around. Now if only I could read Chinese.

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rabidsnail
Is it supposed to be alerting my user agent string? I smell XSS!

~~~
mr_justin
Easy there, probably just a developer debug message checked into production by
mistake.

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Keyframe
so much work and so beautiful to look at!

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seshagiric
what no cars!

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pbz
Beautiful!

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erlanger
Plane crash! Fire! Riot! Tornado! Earthquake! Flood!

~~~
latortuga
Tools -> Disable Natural Disasters

~~~
access_denied
The cheat: hit F-U-N-D-S to get 10,000$ for free. But after you did this a few
times too often, the game engine would activate all desasters after another.
Is this just me, or does this remember me of someone at Wall Street?

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weegee
"pfft air one reporting heavy traffic pfft"

~~~
weegee
you guys didn't play the original Sim City did you. I used to leave my Mac
Plus on all night to grow the population, I could run the game on a single
800k floppy, wow. Amazing how quickly the senior members of YC will vote
someone down. Guess it's your way of keeping YC an elite site, and it boosts
your morale knowing you're all better than us small-time users. Yawn, how
boring is that?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
You get voted down for not adding value deemed relevant.

