the ExploreShanghai blog

Try typing Hanzi into the green box, and watch the pinyin magically appear in a mockup of a Shanghai street sign. You’ll need to use your computer’s IME to enter the Chinese characters.

I’ve been spending some time reworking the ExploreShanghai City map. It’s not quite ready for primetime but I thought you might be interested in a preview. The new version will feature:

• Accurate street mapping for all of Shanghai
• Full zoom-in/zoom-out: see all of Shanghai or just your street
• Faster startup - downloads just the map data you need.
• Many more pin types and icons
• Turn on and off different pin types: see all hospitals, all Chinese restaurants, etc.
• An enhanced API with plotting by latitude/longitude for integration with other data (GeoRSS, KML files)

Look out for the new ExploreShanghai City to be launched in the next couple of months.

An example of the new categories. Categories can be turned on/off with checkboxes

Some detailed road data, you can see the Huangpu River in outline!