Google Hacks, 3rd Edition

Chapter 5. Google Maps

Hacks 63–69

Google revolutionized online maps with the release of Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) in February 2005, by offering a fast-loading, dynamic, and responsive map that you can zoom into and move around, much like you can with a real map. And unlike a real map, a Google Map can display extended information about points on the map, routes and boundaries, satellite images, or a hybrid of street maps on top of satellite images.

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Google Maps is its API, which allows anyone to build their own maps with their own geographic points and extended information. The API has spawned a series of mapping mash-ups, where geographic points from one source are displayed using Google, often at a third site with no relation to Google or the original data source. For example, Chicagocrime.org (http://www.chicagocrime.org) takes data about crimes from the Chicago Police Department, plots those crimes on a map with the Google API, and offers it for public consumption at its web site, giving Chicagoans a map of where crimes are happening in their city.

What’s revolutionary about the site is that developer Adrian Holovaty didn’t need to contact the Chicago Police or Google to make it a reality. And no one from either Google or the Chicago Police needed to have a meeting to make the visualization happen. With freely available data and Google’s open API, an intrepid developer can help others visualize our physical world in a new ...