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All Maps in China are Transformed

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Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#41

Post by iliis »

rmc wrote: post #25
jann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because private mapping is prohibited and there is no public-domain map data. from paxswill's link: "According to the Surveying and Mapping Law of the People's Republic of China, private surveying and mapping activities are illegal in mainland China."[0] [0] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_China#Legalit...

no public-domain map data For the record there is no public domain map data in a lot of countries in Europe. The USA has the sensible approach of 'all government data (incl. maps) should be public domain'. In Europe the state owned mapping organisations do the mapping and claim full copyright on the maps & data. The 'illegal to make your own maps' is, obviously, not the case in EU

> In Europe the state owned mapping organisations do the mapping and claim full copyright on the maps & data.

This is true here in Switzerland. You have to pay quite a bit for our maps. I think it's a good thing actually, because their quality is worth the price. They provide extreme detail even in very remote locations (well, remote for us at least ;)). And for doing quick lookups, there's a free online-map at http://map.geo.admin.ch/, which also provides a lot of statistical data.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#42

Post by tokenadult »

est wrote: post #29
machinagod wrote: post #12

There's a couple of regulations for selling GPS enabled devices in China (I am a software guy on a major PND manufacturer with products being sold in China). - The map data is scrambled (GPS coordinates are encrypted). - To correlate a GPS position with the map data, you plug the HW position through an encryption library (which you have to compile in a specific government building in Beijing). - Border drawing is str…

> Tibet is of course China Do you guys put Tibet as disputed area on like 90% of the maps in the West? Really?

On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet Autonomous Region administrative division of China, including most of the territory of what is called Qinghai Province and quite a bit of land in Sichuan Province.)

The case of Taiwan is even more confusing. A world globe I have from a decade ago, commercially published by a private business corporation rather than officially published, shows Taiwan and the mainland territories of China in the same color. (Usually this globe distinguishes different countries by different colors.) However, the globe also marks the location of both Beijing and Taipei (so spelled) with a star symbol indicating a capital city, suggesting that Taipei is the seat of a national government. United States law under the Taiwan Relations Act strikes a delicate balance between agreeing with the original assertion of both the P.R.C. and R.O.C. regimes that there is one China and Taiwan is a part of China and the current facts on the ground that China (the P.R.C.) and Taiwan (the island of Taiwan and various outlying islands, including some that historically were part of Fujian Province) are under distinct national administrations.

The Wikipedia article on Taiwan independence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence

seems to have enjoyed some good editing back-and-forth so that it is not entirely slanted to one point of view or another.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#43

Post by marshray »

narkee wrote: post #39
marshray wrote: post #30

Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over. "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." "You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said. "What do you mean?" "Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance." I was a little…

Are you suggesting that in this case the blogger is similarly misinformed or deluded? I don't think it's unreasonable to think that China is manipulating its map data, particularly when other people here in the mapping industry have already said this is well known in their field.

Are you suggesting that in this case the blogger is similarly misinformed or deluded?

No.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#44

Post by cbr »

yvolution wrote: post #35
tompagenet2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your cynicism, my experience in Shanghai and Beijing suggests that Google Maps are some way off between satellite and streetmap modes. I have not found the same problem (or at least to anywhere near the same level) in the UK, Chicago, Michigan, Korea, Japan, Germany, Slovakia and many other countries. There does seem to be an offset applied. An example in Shanghai: http://g.co/maps/m34n8 An example…

No where else has more sky scrapers than Shanghai and Beijing, which easily affects your GPS signal.

If you mean buildings over 100m, then no:

    1 	Hong Kong
    2 	New York City
    3 	Tokyo
    4 	Dubai
    5 	Shanghai
Beijing is #20.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_with_most_skyscr...

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#45

Post by archangel_one »

yvolution wrote: post #35
tompagenet2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your cynicism, my experience in Shanghai and Beijing suggests that Google Maps are some way off between satellite and streetmap modes. I have not found the same problem (or at least to anywhere near the same level) in the UK, Chicago, Michigan, Korea, Japan, Germany, Slovakia and many other countries. There does seem to be an offset applied. An example in Shanghai: http://g.co/maps/m34n8 An example…

No where else has more sky scrapers than Shanghai and Beijing, which easily affects your GPS signal.

I suspect that Tokyo might well have more. Anyway, the loss of accuracy in such a case wouldn't cause a consistent effect like this - it's normally not in a consistent direction and generally doesn't put you off by so far.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#46

Post by rmc »

marshray wrote: post #30

Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over. "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." "You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said. "What do you mean?" "Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance." I was a little…

those would have to be accurate in order to function

The most common form of map, Mercator projection, greatly distorts the area of land around the equator, and makes northernly (& southerly) lands appear much larger. It makes Canada, Greenland, Alaska, et al. appear quite large compared to Africa & South America. But those areas are much larger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#Uses

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#47

Post by PakG1 »

narkee wrote: post #39
marshray wrote: post #30

Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over. "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." "You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said. "What do you mean?" "Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance." I was a little…

Are you suggesting that in this case the blogger is similarly misinformed or deluded? I don't think it's unreasonable to think that China is manipulating its map data, particularly when other people here in the mapping industry have already said this is well known in their field.

I think the gp is telling an anecdote that is an interesting example of the difficulty that exists in China for certain things, and in no way states that the blogger is misinformed or deluded.

An interesting anecdote from my side, though not necessarily map-related. But in the same theme as gp. This summer, I was volunteering teaching English to rural kids in China. One of the kids kept writing this big message on blackboards and stuff that Osama bin Laden was still alive. One of the local volunteers read what he was writing and was upset at him for fooling around so much. Later, I asked her what's up, and she told me what he was writing.

WTF.

So in the team meeting later that night, I talk with my fellow volunteers about this, and wonder if I have some kind of crazy kid on my hands. Then the Chinese volunteers told me not to worry about it, he's just writing stuff. I'm like, "What do you mean, how do you know?" Then they started talking about how people distrust the government these days, are unhappy, etc. I'm like, "What the heck does that have to do with anything?"

Turns out that all over the Chinese web, this was a really popular meme where Chinese youth displayed their sarcasm at anything the government said. Even things that they knew to be true could not be true because the government said it. It was only a meme, much like the Hitler videos we see on Youtube.

Scared me for a day.

But suffice it to say, people in China aren't so trusting of what their nation says as before. Living here, I hear it from my colleagues and friends every day. That being said, there's very little right now that they can do to voice their opinion because it's still a touchy atmosphere.

This lady is very informative. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/yang_lan.html

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#48

Post by rmc »

devmach wrote: post #10

Could it be true also for the some parts of Europe ? When i was in Belgium ( Brugge ) and Germany ( Nürnberg, Berlin ) i used google maps a lot. And i realised some streets, not all, looks longer or shorter than others on the map.

In the USA, map data from the government is public domain. In Europe this is not the case. You have to pay for map data from the government. As a result Google Maps is usually based off 3rd party map data like TeleAtlas, who use things like aerial imagery & guesswork. This can result in not 100% accurate maps, so there can be mistakes and errata like that. That's much more likely than government control.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#49

Post by marshray »

rmc wrote: post #46
marshray wrote: post #30

Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over. "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." "You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said. "What do you mean?" "Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance." I was a little…

those would have to be accurate in order to function The most common form of map, Mercator projection, greatly distorts the area of land around the equator, and makes northernly (& southerly) lands appear much larger. It makes Canada, Greenland, Alaska, et al. appear quite large compared to Africa & South America. But those areas are much larger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#Uses

Yes I was familiar with that at the time, but I don't recall if it was mentioned in our particular discussion. In any case, Taiwan is relatively far South in its region so the projection effect would tend to be reduced. It would actually have the effect of making mainland China look larger.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#50

Post by eob »

Here's a completely anecdotal, "a friend of a friend.." story, but I think it's a cool yi and you'll enjoy it:

A friend of a friend is a cartographer who works in DC. According to this person, the official subway map of DC distorts the true geography of the city -- and the subway lines -- as much for security purposes as it does graphic design purposes. The red line, in particular, apparently is drawn with a completely bogus path through the city on the maps. The true path of the line goes underneath the national mall and several important government buildings, if this person is to be believed.

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