Relying largely on crowdsourcing and its MapMaker product, Google announced the addition of maps and local business search for 30 countries across Africa:

Our big announcement today is that we are launching Maps domains for 30 countries across Africa. So what’s on offer? As well as searching online Maps for towns, highways, or roads, Google Maps users can now find local businesses. This could be a burger place in Lagos, a garage in Kampala, a hairdresser in Accra or an airport shuttle in Dakar. Any business anywhere can add their own business listing for free via the Google Maps Local Business Centre. Businesses can also improve their websites and help customers locate them by installing the Maps API.

This also extends into mobile as well.

There are a total of 47 countries on the African mainland and 53 in all if island nations are included. Looking for a hotel in Casablanca Morocco? There’s now a comparable experience to what users in Europe and North America are used to (no Street View however). It’s not clear how complete or accurate the data are however.

Bing offers maps for Africa but doesn’t appear to have any local data.

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

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