This is the fourth post in the Matt’s Wikimapia Blog ‘How To’ Series. In this edition, I will tell you how to quickly and easily add Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website or blog. For this exercise, I will be adding Venice, Italy to my blog. Images are clickable for larger versions.

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

When we first reach the area around Venice, Italy, it can be a little overwhelming.

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

A lot of times when I am at a particular zoom level that is overwhelming, I will select “no places” in the “view” menu to make things a little less cluttered. When I get closer to Venice, I will go back and select “show places” or “upcoming places” (if I want to see everything).

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

Now I have zoomed closer in to Venice. When you find the place that you want to have a map of your your website, you need to decide how large you want the map and at what zoom level. I think this is a good size for what I want.

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

When I have the location that I want, I go to the “Wikimapia” menu and select “Map on your page”.

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

When that is selected, a movable selection box appears along with an information box that says: “To place a part of this map on your site or blog, move/resize the frame and copy the html code below to your page.”

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

Now I move the selector box (by dragging any of the small white boxes at the four corners of the box) to fit the area and size that I want. The html code is listed in the information box:

< iframe src=http://wikimapia.org/s/#y=45436888&x=12335587&z=13&l=0&m=s&v=2 width=460 height=267 frameborder=0 >< /iframe >

I then select and copy that html code. Whatever page you want it to appear on (in this case I will be posting it in this blog post) should be opened in whatever editor you use. When it is opened, paste the html code in wherever you want it to appear. Save your page and upload it (if needed). This is the result:

Notice that the selection I had enabled when I made the map will also show up. I had turned on “upcoming places” so those (along with all the official places of course) will show up. If I had wanted to turn off all place markers, I could do that.

Adding Google Wikimapia and Google Maps to your website: Venice, Italy.

I have zoomed closer in on Venice to Saint Mark’s Square and turned off the place markers. If I copy the code and paste it, I get this result (with the selections I made):

Another thing that could be helpful to some people or businesses would be to use a map instead of a satellite view (I will also leave places turned off, but you could have any combination of selections). In the “view” menu, select “Map”. This will turn your view into the plain map view. In some circumstances, using the “Hybrid” selection (which will use a combination of satellite imagery and plain maps) may be appropriate. Just using the map of Venice would produce this:

Once your maps have been produced on your website, they are functional just like Wikimapia is. You can navigate and zoom in and out as usual. Clicking a place marker will open a link that says “show info”. Clicking it will open up Wikimapia to that location.

Pretty cool functionality, isn’t it? You can visit Venice at Wikimapia or just use the maps above!

The Matt’s Wikimapia Blog “How To” Series:
How To #1: Adding a New Place
How To #2: Upcoming Places
How To #3: Pictures and Comments
How To #4: Adding Wikimapia and Google Maps to your Website
How To #5: YouTube in Wikimapia!
How To #6: Adding Polygons