The Lands Department has launched MyMapHK, an app designed to give the public easy access to the official government maps of Hong Kong. Outdoorsy people can search for hiking trails by difficulty, area, and type (i.e. long distance) complete with photos, transport information and country park facility information. Meanwhile history buffs can break out the app to brush on trivia tidbits about local historical buildings. There’s even a pretty sweet function where you can gradually switch from the official 1889 map of Hong Kong to the current one, so you can see how Hong Kong has changed in 125 years (the answer: quite a lot, but not as much as you would think).
Unfortunately for everyday use you can’t get directions from point A to point B, which seems like a major con to the app. But there’s a “Nearby Facilities” function which gives the user the closest facilities that you need: car parks, gas stations, WiFi hotspots, hotels, recycling collection points—you name it. There’s also interesting functions like being able to bookmark a location or measure the distance between two points, but we’re not sure how handy those will be.
So far the app has worked smoothly for us, and besides the fact that it can’t give directions, it appears to a big improvement over Google Maps. There’s way more information and labels on the map, and with the option of choosing either English or Chinese you don’t have to deal with Google’s confusing system of displaying street and building names in either English or Chinese.
The app is available for both iPhone and Android users and you can download it here.
Photo: Lands Department website
