Taiwan pinyin street maps on Windows Live Search

Although it goes against my religion to congratulate Microsoft for anything, I have to thank them for this.

Windows Live Search has all cities and towns in Taiwan shown with pinyin street names.

Taiwan Map

I did find a couple of minor errors in the map for my city (streets that don’t connect to anything), and I’m not sure of the accuracy of the romanisation, but it still looks quite good for those of us who can’t read much Chinese.

It’s a muddle.

Wade-Giles for city names – ugh.

Taipei streets are given in Hanyu Pinyin (without correct word parsing or the necessary apostrophes) – but not the roads with “nicknumbers.” This means that the main roads of Taipei are (at least for the most part) labelled in a system that no one knows. :raspberry: Just tough luck for those who don’t know that “4th Blvd” means Zhongxiao East/West Road.

For Gaoxiong the road names are given in a mix of Tongyong and MPS2.

Elsewhere, road names are given mainly in MPS2.

Cool. I am trying the "locate me"tool. Sounds like 007 !

Don’t give in to the Dark Side, Luke.

Far Far better is the google maps implementation. now you can make personalised maps, etc: send your Mum a map with photos and landmrks and comments and routes etc, so she knows how you’re spending your time away from home. Or make one up…

And as for the pinyin purists, suck it up. It’s not too hard to decipher all the variant forms of pinyin, and a handy skill in Taiwan too. Or suggest that maybe they could use BPMF in future… now that would be a way to settle the old Pinyin argument.

Windows Live Search has high-res 3-D pictures (not drawings!) of many cities in the US and Germany. Check it out!

FWIW, I used the term pinyin as a catch-all for all the various forms.

Sure, it may be a muddle, but that reflects reality, right?

SUCKS… the IP is linked to Singapore while I am in Taiwan…

My Bad.

For some reason i thought that i was able to see Pinyin stereet names when i was playing around last month with Google Maps.

I Was Wrong. There are no pinyin names in Google maps, so if I led you up the wrong path I apologise.

means my chinese is getting better if i don’t even notice the language now!

Notice how Taiwan is shown as a province of China ?

The reality here is a muddle all right. But Microsoft’s muddle and the muddles that exist on the actual streetsigns in different locations around Taiwan are very different things. Microsoft would have been wiser simply to use Hanyu Pinyin (real Hanyu Pinyin); at least that way people would have the best chance of knowing how the names are meant to be pronounced. This way it’s often impossible to be sure – which, yes, is a lot like Taiwan. :frowning:

Speaking of things that are a lot like Taiwan, has everyone seen this sign?

That sign’s not as good as the one in Taizhong that has 3 different systems for the same road name on the same intersection. And no, I can’t remember what road it is.

But please don’t criticise Microsoft’s muddle. This is the only time in history I’ve had something good to say about them - don’t spoil it for me. :smiley: