Short Note: Wikimapia…the World in a Map

We all love Wikipedia, right? And as most of you know, Wikipedia also offers the possibility to add some geospatial items to each “article”. By doing so, you can be sure to see the correct part of the former Berlin Wall and not some stupid painted wall in central Berlin… At this point Wikimapia steps in.

Wikimapia

Wikimapia is a long running project (started in 2006) which combines spatial information with Wikipedia articles/content. But you can also add new stuff without the need of a Wikipedia article:

In the end you have content for every highlighted element in the map:

After nearly a decade the side gathered more then 25’000’000 objects in a linear rate which is shown in the following graph (source):

Capabilities

Wikimapia lets you search in different categories but also offers a free search. You can add your places without any registration using an easy-to-use graphical editor on the map. Furthermore you can generate a link to your current map view for easy sharing!

Further Comments

The site provider is Russian based and the whole project (founded by Alexander Korjakin and Jewgeni Saweljew) claims to be a community project, yet the high number of advertisements is a bit annoying (hotel search and lots of Google Adsense). The ‘company’ behind is also offering some nice jobs but is not associated with Wikipedia neither the Wikimedia foundation. Nevertheless it is an interesting approach and seems to be widely accepted by lot’s of users…