OREANDA-NEWS. June 03, 2010. Yandex.Maps has added more than 70 new cities in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to its collection of satellite images. Now, using People’s Map service, people in, say, Vyborg, Petrozavodsk or Chita, can draw a map right over a detailed satellite image of their city or just see what their city looks like from space.

People’s Map is a service, which allows users create their own maps by marking buildings, streets, forests and rivers on high-precision, quality satellite images. Over less than two months since its launch, the service has had more than 100,000 buildings and 350,000 km of roads added by the users. Cartography enthusiasts make maps not only for their hometowns, but also for their favorite holiday destinations like Paris, Athens or their dacha community.

“We are constantly expanding our collection of satellite images on Yandex.Maps”, says Maria Orlova, the Yandex.Maps manager. “And the ever growing popularity of People’s Map simply makes us do this even faster — the more images we can offer, the more people will be able to map their street.”
Currently, People’s Map offers detailed satellite images of 369 cities with suburbs, including 232 cities in Russia, 41 in Ukraine, 5 in Belarus, 18 in Kazakhstan and 73 in the rest of the world.