Comment by quant18
15 years ago
There's quite a lot of map companies offering similar "SimCity-style" maps:
Edushi (http://edushi.com/), as others have mentioned --- IIRC they were one of the first to market
Baidu rolled out their own offering in 2010 (go to http://maps.baidu.com/, pick a city from the menu on the right, and then click the "三维" button)
City8 (http://city8.com/) don't have 3D maps, but they have a Streetview equivalent which they've been working on since 2008 in Shanghai, Beijing, and other cities: http://en.city8.com/search/search.aspx
Couple of articles which may be interesting reading (in Chinese) --- touching on China-specific privacy, legal/data licensing issues, etc. surrounding these maps:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/internet/2008-03/14/content_778745...
This is neat. For example:
Shanghai skyscrapers: http://j.map.baidu.com/-FNB Beijing Olympic stadium: http://j.map.baidu.com/TjNB
Edit: for some reason, the links don't work in Chrome. Firefox works though.
The Baidu maps are powered by o.cn--you can see "o.cn" in the watermark.
Or for example chachaba.com (in Shenzhen):
http://sz.chachaba.com/location.action?placeId=221a75f1-bcfc...
They had problems with providing a mapping service in China without a license though. They were forced to shutdown for a very long time + redesigned their website to survive. Make sure you get the right license first in China!
For "Ultima-style" city maps, check out 8-Bit Cities:
http://8bitcity.com/