# Map of China in English not Characters



## redex (Jun 12, 2012)

Hello Everyone

I would very much appreciate your help with this.

I was in England and I am now in Guangzhou China. I have an android phone and I used google maps in England to find my way around. However now in Guangzhou China google maps no longer works (it is blocked by the great firewall). 

Does anyone know of any apps for a map of China (or Guangzhou) which I can download. The only map I can find is called "amap" (gaogdeditu) however this only shows in characters which I cannot read

Please help, it would be much appreciated.

Xie Xie


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## bean481 (Jun 10, 2014)

With a VPN connection you can use Google maps in English


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## cschrd2 (Oct 31, 2011)

Google maps from HongKong Google will show you the bilingual maps (don't use the www.ditu link as that will be in Chinese). In the past I used Tom Tom which was bilingual (being pinying and characters). Not sure how it now is though.


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## badsector (May 23, 2014)

Baidu Maps‘ user interface only comes in Chinese, but in my experience it is more accurate and up-to-date than Google Maps.


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## redex (Jun 12, 2012)

i have got a vpn now, so google maps is unlocked

thank you


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## Eric in china (Jul 8, 2014)

redex said:


> i have got a vpn now, so google maps is unlocked
> 
> thank you


Out of interest where did you get the VPN and which company is it with? I too need to go down this route.


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## redex (Jun 12, 2012)

I used astral vpn it works great when you are connected to wifi. But does not seem to work when connected to mobile data on your mobile phone.

So this is a big limitation of the vpn as I obviously need a map on my mobile phone when I am out and about. 

Can anyone suggest a map for my phone when I am using mobile data?


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## redex (Jun 12, 2012)

Rosiefutures said:


> I found an app that is like the iPhone maps app. Do you have a smart phone? There seems to be both online and offline versions.


What is the name of the app?


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## bean481 (Jun 10, 2014)

Rosiefutures said:


> There are 370 results for China map in the App Store. "China Map", "China offline map" (there are two different ones of these!), "China travel guide by triposo", and many more are both in English and offline. Some have gps functions, some show parking and hotel names. Hope this helps! :-S


 be careful with GPS maps. If it's Chinese it's probably OK. Many other maps give false positions (Google maps) about 0.5 km off. Apple Maps is OK though


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## bean481 (Jun 10, 2014)

Be careful about using GPS maps authored in the West. Apple Maps is OK but Google Maps gives false positions (just switch to Satellite view and you'll see what I mean. Normal street view is OK). Likewise be careful of other apps that use GPS data (such as MapMyRun etc). They likewise give false positions around 0.5km out. Chinese authored apps are generally OK but they're in Mandarin of course. 

Maps.me does a complete map for China (545Mb download) but it's in Chinese and lacks some local detail.

AutoNavi Information Technology maps are fantastic (but in Chinese) giving bus routes and navigation etc. for individual cities (in detail) as well as a general one for the whole country. All requiring downloads of course.


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## bean481 (Jun 10, 2014)

bean481 said:


> With a VPN connection you can use Google maps in English


Google Maps in China gives false current position, offset by about 500m. Apple Maps is fine. Locally produced maps are fine, such as Gaode, or Baidu. I think it's a relic of Government requirements that locations be offset. (presumably this was a security measure).


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