Mountain View, California — Relentlessly striving to bring viewers the comfort of exploring Frances’ interiors, Google today announced that it is bringing its indoor maps for places like airports, museums, and malls in Google Maps for Android to France. Google has included over 50 French venues in the offering.
Coverage starts with the major avenues such as airports in Paris and Lyon, extending to include major nationwide stores like Carrefour and FNAC, shopping centers like the Carrousel du Louvre and museums like La Géode.
However, the next time you pass by Galeries Lafayette in Paris, you will be able to examine detailed floor plans for every floor, including information about escalators, ATMs and nearby restrooms. The maps vary in detail, but the floor plans for supermarket chain Carrefour, for example, will even show you what is in the different aisles and give you walking directions.
“Now, even if you are visiting one of these large, well-trafficked places for the first time, you can navigate your way around like a pro,” says Google Maps Product Manager Cedric Dupont in a blog post. “And with the accurate My Location feature that works indoors, you can easily figure out if you are close to the shop you are looking for, the escalator that will get you to the right gate, or even the nearest ATM or restroom.”
Currently, Google Maps features just 50 indoor floor plans in Google Maps for Android, which should be enough for those moments when you are rushing to catch a connecting flight at Orly… or just want to find the salad dressings in aisle three, but the company plans to expand this feature to more locations in the near future. Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, for example, are represented in this release, but you would not find maps for popular museums like the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay.
“We even partnered with super markets such as Carrefour so that you can look for items like the ‘dairy’ aisle and figure out the fastest way to the milk products to save time when shopping,” notes Dupont.
According to Google, the company currently offers about 10,000 indoor maps. The UK and Switzerland just got indoor maps this July, too. In addition, this feature is currently available in the U.S., Canada and Japan. In order to accelerate the map creation process, venue owners can upload their own floor plans, but this option is only available in the U.S., UK and Japan.
Unfortunately though, this feature is only available on Android and can not be access through Google Maps on the web (though if Google ever releases a version of Google Maps for iOS, we expect it will also feature indoor maps).
You can see a full list of locations here.