Commercial Yes | Available in Chinese | |
Launched 2005; 12 years ago (2005) | ||
Baidu Maps is a desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Baidu, offering satellite imagery, street maps, street view ("Panorama" - zh:百度全景) and indoor view perspectives, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or with public transportation. Android and iOS applications are available.
Contents
Baidu Maps is available only in the Chinese language and before 2016, it offered maps only of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the rest of the world appearing unexplored. Currently Baidu Maps also offers maps of various other countries. It's reported that more than 150 countries will be supported by the end of 2016. Baidu uses map data supplied by NavInfo, MapKing, Here, LocalKing and OpenStreetMap.
Countries and territories supported
History
Coordinate system
Baidu Map uses the Mercator projection, with latitude and longitude expressed in degrees, and distances in meters. However, it uses the BD-09 coordinate system, which adds further obfuscation to the already obfuscated national standard in China, GCJ-02 (which in turn is offset from the de facto standard around the world, WGS-84).
The Baidu Map API documentation specifies that real GPS coordinates must be converted via a coordinate conversion interface. An HTTP interface, JavaScript API, Android SDK, and iOS SDK are available.
The JavaScript coordinate conversion API is demonstrated online by Baidu, but without any reverse (to GCJ-02) conversion capabilities. Open source implementations in R and various other languages exist, implemented in a manner much like the reverse GCJ-02 algorithm.
Street view service
The street view service of Baidu Maps was first launched on August 21, 2013. This is a list of cities supported as of March 11, 2015: