Out of the way, Google and Apple Maps. Here’s a 3-dimensional, interactive, painstakingly rendered map of Beijing that, on top of all its pretty amazing features, looks like the ultimate Lego world.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like you can zoom out all the way, but you can go far enough out to realize that the people who did this had a lot of time on their hands.
It’s not all perfect — Sanlitun looks markedly dissimilar — but at its best, it looks like SimCity:
That’s Dongzhimen, and it looks like the artists even tried to render the big screen attached to Raffles Mall.
Play around and see if you find all your favorite landmarks, including your apartment.
(Edushi, h/t Donald Clarke)
Late find, because that website is already well over 4 years old. Baid Maps also has had a 3D-version of major cities for ages already.
Not just that but most other Chinese map services (Baidu/Sogou) have since copied this style. Also, with Baidu you can zoom out a few steps further. Sogou can zoom out all the way, to include the entire city. Also, Sogou has converted more of the city to 3D, so I’d suggest using Sogou 3D. The quality of their conversion is better than Baidu as well. It also lacks the floating advertisement you have to sidestep on Edushi.
This isn’t even 3D, it’s 3/4ths view.
Wow…shit post…
This is incredibly old news…step it up, Beijing Cream