Humans have been making maps since the Stone Age. In fact, map-making predates written language by several millenia. Nowadays, people make maps online using tools like the Google Maps API — but using an API isn’t as easy as scribbling on a cave wall.

That’s why we’re announcing My Maps, a new feature that makes it quick and easy to create your own custom Google Maps just by pointing and clicking. You can add placemarks, draw lines and shapes, and embed text, photos and videos — all using a simple drag and drop interface. Your map automatically gets a public URL that you can share with your friends and family, or you can also publish your map for inclusion in Google Maps search results. We’ll continue to show organic local search results with red pushpins; user-generated results will have blue pushpins. The user-created results include KML as well as maps made through My Maps.

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This weekend, there has been a lot of discussion about our imagery of New Orleans in Google Maps and Google Earth. I thought I’d give you some background that may clear things up, and also let you know about new imagery of the region now available.

In 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, a very motivated group of volunteers at Google worked with NOAA, NASA, and others to post updated imagery of the affected areas in Google Maps and Google Earth as quickly as possible. This data served as a useful reference for many people — from those interested in understanding what had happened, to friends and families checking on the status of loved ones and property, to rescuers and relief workers. Shortly after the event, we received a voicemail thanking us for the role Google Earth played in guiding rescuers to stranded victims.

Several months later, in September 2006, the storm imagery was replaced with pre-Katrina aerial photography of much higher resolution as part of a regular series of global data enhancements. We continued to make available the Katrina imagery, and associated overlays such as damage assessments and Red Cross shelters, on a dedicated site (earth.google.com/katrina.html). Our goal throughout has been to produce a global earth database of the best quality — accounting for timeliness, resolution, cloud cover, light conditions, and color balancing.

Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments. Nevertheless, we recognize the increasingly important role that imagery is coming to play in the public discourse, and so we’re happy to say that we have been able to expedite the processing of recent (2006) aerial photography for the Gulf Coast area (already in process for an upcoming release) that is equal in resolution to the data it is replacing. That new data was published in Google Earth and Google Maps on Sunday evening.

Make no mistake, this wasn’t any effort on our part to rewrite history. But it looks like this April Fool’s joke was on us.

Google has released Google Maps Australia. Here is their official blurb:

Many Australians have used our maps and satellite images, so today we’re especially excited to launch Google Maps Australia. We’ve expanded service to include Australian business listings, driving directions, and support for Google Mobile Maps in Australia.

The next time you’re looking for an address, tiger meat pie in Sydney, cafes in Melbourne, or how to get to the beach, Google Maps can help you find the answer. If you’re at your computer, go to http://maps.google.com.au and start searching — you can type addresses or business searches like [cricket near melbourne] all into the same search box. If you want to access Google Maps on your mobile device, go to http://www.google.com/gmm from your Java- enabled phone or Palm device to get started.

What do you get when you mix the best browser with the best mapping service?

Yes, you get aerial photography of a huge crop circle of the Firefox logo.

Curious as to how the Firefox Crop Circle was made? Here are all the behind the scenes details.

There are tons of hacks and mashups out there that build upon Google Maps through their API.

The one I’ve been fooling around with today lets you select any point on earth and “dig” a hole directly across the middle of the Earth. After clicking you end up on the other side. Unfortunately, it appears that digging from anywhere on the continental United States would land you somewhere in the Indian Ocean. At least Hawaiians ends up in Africa somewhere…

Go get your geographical shovel and give it a try.

News reports coming out of Germany say that this massive insect escaped its underground lair sometime in the last couple of days and has been terrorizing rural areas. Witnesses claim the creature is at least 50 meters in length and can snap a person in two with its powerful jaws.

All attempts to contain the beast have proven fruitless and the German government has sent out an international plea for military aid. Large cans of Raid^® are also being accepted.

The Google Earth Blog is reporting that there have been some worldwide updates to the aerial and satellite photography for many areas in both Google Earth and Google Maps.

A nice update for those of you that like to explore via these tools. I do wish my area would get a little more high resolution love in some parts, though. It’s pretty damn cool, and somewhat creepy, to see your own car in your driveway.

This enterprising fellow has created just what I have been wanting for a while. Google Maps vs. Yahoo! Maps places synchronized map results for both Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps side-by-side so you can compare the two.

I’ve been playing with it for a while and am seeing that Yahoo! Maps really lacks in the aerial photography department. I imagine both sites serve up decent, useful maps, but that’s been true for map sites dating way back to when MapQuest was pretty much the only game in town. My comparisons weren’t that extensive, though, so your areas may fare better on either one.

Here is the first example I always use when testing out a new map site. It’s the Luxor Pyramid in Las Vegas. It’s just the most ridiculous man-made landmark I can think of that’s clearly visible from above.

One of my favourite Google Maps hacks is definitely WikiMapia. It takes Google’s beautiful mapping interface and, in Wikipedia fashion, allows users to drag boundaries over any location and then add a name, a description and even links.

As if I didn’t already spend enough time dragging around in Google Maps, now I can actually figure out what some of the places I find are. Of course, not all areas have been marked very well, and in some popular areas there is quite a bit of humorous vandalism. Luckily there is a system for reporting false entries, though I don’t know how they can manage to verify these reports when they have the entire earth over which to administer.

The site is useful for more than just idle exploration, though. A lot of times when you search for an address with Google Maps, the resulting arrow ends up pointing in the middle of the street or a good half a block from the actual building you want to find. This can help you pinpoint your destination better, but as I said earlier, not all areas are going to be marked well enough to make it useful on a regular basis.

Would be nice if Google themselves added this type of functionality to their maps. Yes, I know that Google Earth has similar editing capabilities, but not everyone has it installed on their system. Everyone does has a browser, though.