Google Maps covers 54 More Countries
 

Ok, not absolutely Asia centric, but Google Maps has added Cambodia, Lao, Burma/Myanmar, Sri Lanka and others.

The resolution of the overhead imagery is improving rapidly. You can just about make out the Vientiane aerobics class in the pavilion by the Mekong or the water monitors hanging out in Kandy lake in LK, sadly truncated to the east.

The Beerlao plant remains in the low-res area, though. What are the guys who set imagery priorities thinking?

Its cool to see Costa Rica added too. But you know what, I wish they can expand maps of China and her cities.

Resolution of Cambodia and Lao, including some of the Cambodia/Thai border region has improved a lot. The Ta Muen complex, 14.349/103.266, for instance, is easily visible as well as improved imagery of Wat Phu in Lao, 14.848/105.814, and even the ferry crossing, 14.196/105.889. Lots of other places like Kampong Som, Vang Vieng, etc..

There's a Google Earth Wikiloc layer that shows bike/moto/foot GPS tracks. Preah Vihear is still low-res. Resolution of new-BKK has finally improved.

I second that -- too much of the important country is clouded by those dreaded "We're sorry we don't have imagery at this zoom level". Although, I will say that because of the Olympics, the Beijing images are fantastic. Hopefully they'll keep moving throughout China as quickly as they are throughout the world. There is a little progress, but the close-up photos are still noticeably lacking.

Google Map Maker function for 17 more countries
 

including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

Here's the basic Google Map Maker link.

So, now the race is on to be the first to add such useful Points of Interest as the Lucky Bar on the river bank at Vang Vieng, Lao.

Instead of contributing your data to a giant corporation that will claim all the rights on it, you might wish to contribute to an open-source project doing the same:

http://openstreetmap.com/

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry8700c: BlackBerry8310/4.5.0.69 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/120)

Sadly there is no straight priorities list specifically, since there are several data providers and each have differing prices and qualities available.

Thanks for the pointer. It's more accurate in my immediate neighborhood than the Google equivalent. I guess we'll see how the competition improves the various offerings and if it makes up for the fragmentation of effort.

High Resolution Imagery of Sri Lanka Features
 

Google Maps and Google Earth has some nice high resolution overhead imagery of features in Sri Lanka.

For example, the relatively underappreciated Sigiriya Lion Mountain.

The Dambulla cave temple area.

Temple of the Tooth, Kandy.

The views of these sites are somewhat nondescript. You can hop over to Google Earth and enable Panoramio and Wikipedia layers to see narrative and on the ground photo details where available.