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Have met travellers cycling in Tajikistan, and they're hoping they can download maps of China - either road or cycle tracks (or both). They've searched high and low, and haven't found decent road-level quality maps. Any suggestions for easily downloadable maps for a laptop?

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Check whether Ovi Maps supports China. Those can be installed offline for Nokia phones. – Ankur Banerjee♦ Jul 16 '11 at 8:57
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Disagree, I think this question is distinct. – Ginamin Jul 16 '11 at 13:52
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@Andra: The older question is about GPS devices and this question is about laptop computers. The same maps may or may not be usable on both. GPS devices may have specific channels through which maps are obtainable. – hippietrail Jul 21 '11 at 10:35
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China is a tough one. Beware Google Maps are deliberately offset in China presumably at the request of the Chinese government, using Google Maps with a GPS device will have you about 500 meters out of place on the maps. I don't know how prevalent this is with other mapping software and solutions but it's something to be aware of. – dageshi Jul 24 '11 at 18:12
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up vote 7 down vote accepted

You could look at http://www.openstreetmap.org/ which is google maps meets wikipedia. It's all copyleft, so you can download it yourself. However you'll have to find a suitable applicaton/format youself. Hunt around the http://wiki.openstreetmap.org

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They're not the most computer-keen people, an app with a convenient export tool would be best. I'm trying out a couple of them from openstreetmap myself at present as I'd not mind having one too, but other suggestions would be good. – Mark Mayo Jul 15 '11 at 12:24
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You can download garmin ready osm data. See my answer on: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/448/… – Andra Jul 16 '11 at 11:20
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While I was there I used nokia maps. You need a nokia phone to use them, but it worked very well (on the street level) for me. You can download the maps free, and the entire of China fitted on my phone.

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