User Guide: The Main Screen

User Guide
Getting started
Guidelines
Philosophy
Advice for new users
Editing places (tags)
Introduction Message
Adding place
Places and place tags
Languages
Polygons (outlines)
Photos
Addresses
Categories
Parent & Child tags
Comments
Deleting places
Deletion criteria
Linear features (Transportation)
Roads edit
Railroads edit
Ferry edit
Rivers edit
Other UI features
The main screen
Wikimapia's URL
Map types
My account (profile)
Geotools
Searching
User Script
Community
Forum
Finding help
Experience points
User account
User levels
Other users
Voting
Vandalism
Banning users
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
Technical issues
Satellite images
To do

About the Wikimapia Main Screen

This is a description of the features you can see and which are available from the main screen.

1. At the very top, your browser's title bar shows either the Wikimapia motto "Let's describe the whole world!", or (if you are zoomed in enough) a description of where the screen is centered (the white + in the middle). For example, if you are looking at the Charles de Gaulle airport northeast of Paris, it says "France / Ile-de-France / Saint-Denis, 16 km". This means that the location is 16 km from the nearest reference point (Saint-Denis); it does not mean that the location IS Saint-Denis.

2. If you have the browser's address bar displayed it shows the latitude and longitude (#lat=49.009276&lon=2.548485) as well as some other stuff.

3. In the main window you can see a view of the world. These are satellite images, sometimes aerial photography, and sometimes no image at all (close-ups over the oceans, for example). The images are supplied by Google and are in fact the same images as are used by Google Maps. WikiMapia has NO control over their quality or their age. That bears repeating: WikiMapia has NO control over the quality of the satellite images or how old they are. Google does update their images periodically, but they do so on their own schedule and when they see fit.

4. You will also see country names, and (at higher zoom levels) city names overlaid on the satellite image. These are also supplied 100% by Google, not WikiMapia.

5. On top of the satellite images there are rectangular boxes (place tags). There are actually two types of boxes. Type 1: At low zoom levels there are "city" boxes: the tooltip shows the city name and how many WikiMapia places are associated with the city. If you click on the box, you will zoom in on the city. Type 2: At higher zoom levels there are "place" boxes: the tooltip shows the place's title, and (if it exists) its true, polygonal, shape. These place tags belong to WikiMapia and have been created by Wikimapians like you and I. If you click on the box, you can look at its contents: a description, maybe a photo, a Wikipedia link, and people's comments - in one or more language pages. And according to wiki principles, if you see something incorrect or you want to expand on it, you too can edit it. You can read more about what should be in a place tag in the section Adding Places in this User Guide.

6. Along the top edge there are three items in bold red font: WikiMapia, View & Add place. If you have registered and logged in you will also see a "Hello, (your user name)".

6a. "WikiMapia" is the main WikiMapia menu, containing: Home, Change language, Map on your page, WikiMapia FAQ, Forum, Geotools and either Login/Register or Profile, depending on whether you have registered and logged in or not. You can read more details about most of these elsewhere in this User Guide.

6b. "View" is where you decide what you want to see (note: some of these menu items may not be visible, depending on your User Level). The top section determines which Google view you want: Auto, Map, Hybrid, Satellite, Terrain or Wikimapia layer. The Map view can be very useful if you are looking at a part of the world that is covered by Google Maps. The next section determines which Wikimapia place tags you want to see: None or All; and if you have registered there are additional choices: Users map, Deleted places, Roads and Category Filter. With the Category Filter view you can choose to only look at place tags with a specific category keyword.

6c. "Add place" is where you add places. Please read the "Adding Places" section of this User Guide.

6d."Hello, (your user name)" is another link to your own user profile, exactly the same as Profile under the WikiMapia menu. You can read about this in the My Account section of this User Guide.

7. Near the left-hand edge there is a zoom tool (click the [+] or [-] boxes, click along the bar, or drag the slider), but you can also change the zoom level with the wheel on your mouse. Above the zoom tool is a navigation tool for moving east, west, north or south, and you can also click and drag the map itself. If you double-click on an empty (un-tagged) spot the screen view will be recentered to that location.

You can also use the following keyboard shortcuts to zoom and pan (just remember to click on the map first to activate them): + zooms in, - zooms out, the 4 arrow keys pan in their direction, Home pans one screen west, End pans one screen east, PgUp pans one screen north and PgDn pans one screen south.

All these navigation commands are the same as you have in Google Maps.

8. At the top right corner there is a gray input box and a red "search" button. Please read the Searching section of this User Guide.

9. At the bottom left of the screen is the word Google, which provides a link to Google Maps for this location.

10. Along the bottom there is a message: "Showing ... ...", either "biggest cities" (if you are at a low zoom level) or "biggest places" (if you are zoomed in more). Note that "biggest city" does not refer to population, but rather to the number of Wikimapia place tags.

11. At the bottom right of the screen there is a "Terms of Use" link to Google Maps Terms and Conditions, where you can read the basic legal rules that we have to operate under.