Google Map Maker is an innovative service by Google Maps which lets you add or edit things like roads, new spots and locations in the map of your neighborhood, city or even entire country. Basically it allows you to create your own map within a particular area in Google Maps.

I personally feel (and as the Google Maps team points out) this could be extremely beneficial for people in countries where roads and other location specific information isn’t well organized and hence it’s hard to create a comprehensive map which would accurately display the information about a region. In such cases, maps created by local citizens could come in handy and later could be included in the general map of that region.

If you look at the 2′nd screenshot above, it points out certain features of this map maker tool which are explained below as described by Google.

(1) My MapMaker – Vview your changes and moderate features.
(2) Moderate / Neighborhoods – Moderate features for other users.
(3) Map Search – Search for places, business and anything else that has already been added.
(4) Edit Toolbar – Use this to find features you can edit.
(5) Add Toolbar – Click these to draw a point, line, or add a polygon region.
(6) Views – Click these to switch between different views, including aerial images.
(7) Settings – Control and manage your user settings here.
(8) Link to this page – Get a web address (URL) for your map that you can share with others.
(9) Stats – See how many features you’ve added to the map.
(10) Left Panel – Shows lots of data like Search Results, My Changes and Moderation.
(11) Navigation Controls – Use these to navigate maps.
(12) Map – Displays the map as well as items you are editing.
(13) Info Window – See the details of a feature live. There are two kinds of info windows: Basic and Detailed.

Google Map Maker demo video (by Google)

Check out Google Map Maker @ mapmaker.google.com ( Contributed by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog )