The poet John Donne once said, "No man is an island" - and for those of us who've had the opportunity to see our users map their world, we believe in the collective knowledge of communities sharing what they know best about the places where they've lived, visited, or explored.
Not too long ago, we announced the launch of Google Map Maker - a tool that allows users to build maps of their neighborhoods, cities and countries. Today, we're excited to open up Google Map Maker to forty island nations.
For those of you new to Google Map Maker, check out this brief tutorial about how it works:
Whether it's drawing roads, adding your favorite convenience store or bird-watching spot, or editing major landmarks, we hope to continue making Google Map Maker a platform for our users to share and benefit from the local knowledge of their peers. So if you're spending these months combing the beautiful beaches, towns and trails of the world's island nations, share your local knowledge with us on Google Map Maker.
Here's a shout-out to these forty island nations: American Samoa, Anguilla, Cape Verde, Cocos Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Guam, Isle of Man, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Montserrat, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Reunion, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Micronesia, Christmas Island, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna.
I thought I'd leave you with a little poem our team came up with while hard at work on the fab forty launch:
Snorkeling in Maldives and Gyros in Cyprus,
Mauritius Fishing and Maltese History,
Sailing in Samoa and Camping in Tonga,
These are a few of our favorite things
As you can tell, we love islands and all the fun,
freedom and frolic they stand for. But they can
be more fun - with great maps.
