I‘m on yet another virtual tour, this time in China’s capital city Beijing, Chaoyang district. I would not say that it is a nice part of town, just typical of Beijing. The Chaoyang District is in the South-East corner of the city.
China, Beijing City, Chaoyang District, Jinchan South Lane #9
中国，北京市 ，朝阳区，金蝉南里-9号楼
GPS: 39.861362, 116.502227 (not useful in China)
Plus Code: 8PFRVG62+GV (even more useless in China)
As is typical with a Chinese map, there is no coordinate system points (national security)
China, Beijing City, Chaoyang District, Jinchan South Lane #9 中国，北京市 ，朝阳区，金蝉南里-9号楼, Baidu Street View
I‘ve pretty much proved this, but in North America Google Maps is much better than Baidu. Here are maps from Downtown Toronto, near Bloor and East of Yonge Streets. Google Maps has actual street names and buildings. Baidu has only restaurants. Google’s satellite map is also really good. I could have also zoomed in for greater detail. Hands down, Google wins on English maps of Toronto.
Charles Street, near Bloor Street, Downtown Toronto, Google Maps
Charles Street, near Bloor Street, Downtown Toronto, Baidu Maps
Charles Street, near Bloor Street, Downtown Toronto, satellite, Google Maps
Spare time, I had, and wanted to see where someone was physically located in China. The place is a small town on the border of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, on the Yellow River. What were the odds that I could find her exact location and get a satellite photo of her building?
I started using Google Maps, which was pretty helpful. Considering that Google is not allowed in China, they still had maps of the small city and specifically the 1km section of road that interested me. The sat photo showed great detail, as you can see, but the roads from the diagram did not coordinate very well with the sat map. In fact they were really so far off that some roads went underwater, like tunnels.
