Map apps for China
 

I tried using iOS maps and Google Maps to help guide me to destinations while walking. I found both pretty useless as they were always displaying my incorrect position.

A Chinese colleague said install Baidu maps and voila it immediately showed me in the correct place vs. say in middle of the Yangtze river in Chongqing.

Of course I can't use that app easily as I am not nearly fluent enough in Mandarin.

How do others handle this problem?

I use:
1. Google
2. Baidu (far superior to #1, but Chinese only)

Hey moondog!

I found google maps to be slightly better than Apple maps, but still useless for guiding my way thru a Hutong in Beijing as an example. I would have been better off hiring one of the many locals offering a Hutong tour to help me find my destination.

Just get Baidu Maps. I promise you it's better than Google/Apple. It took me a long time to make the move, but if you want to see current subway lines, and Starbucks locations within 300 meters of you, Baidu is your friend.

I use Google maps, they work fine with me. i use them when driving and they are very exact, telling me to turn right 100 meters before the intersection and telling me to turn at the intersection. I have used them in big cities such as Shanghai or Nanjing and also in the Gansu province in small towns.
I am told that the satellite view is not very precise but I never use that.

As a Nexus user, I'm obviously a Google loyalist. But, for China, their maps aren't especially useful apart from providing information about streets/intersections (and, they even get this wrong a lot of the time).

I have heard that but never experienced it. I use Google maps mostly to drive. Depending what you use them for, they were also good to find the nearest Ikea or Metro supermarket or local police station, without providing an address. But China changes quickly so I guess they may not be able to keep up as well as Chinese apps.

Google Maps has often egregiously shown the incorrect location for Shenzhen addresses- in other words, they place the location in Hong Kong instead of China.

That said, I've only used Baidu elsewhere in China.

Incorrect locations are almost always due to GPS issues IME (I.e. if the reported coordinates are correct, any half decent map software knows how to place them). That having been said, the version of Baidu that Uber uses has some serious issues in this regard. The pin locations are usually quite accurate, but the map never fails to swap Nanjing Rd out for Yan'an Rd near JA Temple. This is possibly due to the fact that JA Temple is a highly policed area, but it is still annoying, nevertheless (Yan'an Rd is an awful place to meet your ride).

I use Google maps with a VPN on my (Nexus) phone and it works well. It might bounce around a little now and then, but I only use walking or public transit directions and have had no trouble. Strangely using Strava in Hefei last weekend it was almost impossible to get a GPS lock on my phone even open areas, but Google Maps got it in seconds.

An alternative that you might try is something like Gaia or OSMAnd+ which have maps that you pre-download and thus use 0 data. These use publicly sourced maps. I don't use them that much here, but they also have walking trails that the others don't cover. I use them for trail running in other parts of the world (and this coming weekend in Hangzhou).

Dr. PITUK

P.S This just reminded me to update my map for the weekend on OSMAnd+. It is possible to choose the language of street names and English (and Chinese) seem to work fine at least in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

On Android for offline maps, I've had good luck with MAPS.ME. Uses OpenStreetMap as its data source and the accuracy is good. No data connection needed, assuming you download the maps in advance.

I just tried maps.me now. Seems to work ok. You need to download an area map while online but then it works offline. Will be useful until I go out and get a SIM later today.

One thing iike about offline maps is they are good for tracking my flights. Google doesn't work for this purpose unless you can figure out how to download China maps (officially prohibited).

One downside of maps.me (for some) is that it is only in Chinese, no Pinyin. I also note that it is not populated with much information. I guess that Baidu maps are better if you can handle Chinese.

Hi

As mentioned above, OSMAnd+ (NFI) has quite a lot of information - including off-road trails! - and you can choose your language from a list of about a dozen for street and trail names. I have tried English and Chinese in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces in the last week and it looks pretty good. Sometimes you might get Chinese only, but for the most part it had lots of English when that was the chosen language.

It also uses similar (same?) underlying data.

Thanks

Dr. PITUK