Maps in China: what works, and what Google will not tell you
Google is not wrong here so much as absent. Two apps, one type of address, and a few habits will get you anywhere.
The short answer
Install two apps before you fly. Neither is Google.
- What works — Amap (高德地图) and Apple Maps are the two that work for navigation in mainland China; Google Maps is thin, dated and offset.
- Why Google is thin — Published mapping data in China uses the GCJ-02 coordinate system, so international pins land 50 to 500 metres from the door, whatever the connection.
- Searching — Paste the Chinese name rather than the English label; pinyin resolves famous sites such as Tiananmen and rarely resolves a restaurant.
- Addresses — A Chinese address runs big to small: province, district, road, building number, then floor and room.
- When it loses you — Location permission set to always, background refresh on, and an offline city map downloaded before arrival solve most of it.
That pair covers almost everything. Baidu Maps is the other serious option and is more Chinese-first; Tencent Maps lives inside WeChat and is fine for a shared location, less good as a daily driver.
Google Maps is not the one. It is not simply blocked: its mainland data is thin, dated and drawn on a shifted coordinate system, so even where it appears to work the pin can land a block from the door.
For the wider setup, our essential apps guide covers the rest of the phone.
Why Google is thin here
Three separate problems, only one of which a connection would solve.
The first is the coordinate system. Chinese law requires mapping data published in the country to be encrypted in a national system known as GCJ-02, which shifts coordinates from the international WGS-84 grid. Domestic apps publish in GCJ-02. A map drawn in WGS-84 will be offset by 50 to 500 metres depending on where you are, and that is the distance between the right door and the wrong one.
The second is maintenance. Google's mainland points of interest were never dense and have not been kept current; the restaurants and hotels that matter are catalogued in Chinese, by Chinese platforms, with Chinese names.
The third is live data. Traffic, bus arrivals, metro exits and closure notices come from the operators. Amap receives them continuously, because it is the app Chinese drivers use.
What Google is still good for: planning at home, reading reviews in English, and the one offline map you made before you left.
What to install
Two that matter, and two alternatives.
| App | What it does | English | Local number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amap（高德地图） | Navigation, transit, live traffic, POI search, ride-hailing, offline city maps | Full interface; place names partly translated | No for browsing; some account features ask |
| Apple Maps | The same mainland data in an English interface; good for a second opinion | Full | No |
| Baidu Maps（百度地图） | Equivalent coverage, stronger on some local businesses; Chinese-first | Partial | Sometimes |
| Dianping（大众点评） | Restaurant and shop reviews with photos and addresses to copy across | Limited | Usually yes for full features |
Download before you fly. China's app stores serve the mainland versions, and the English build of Amap, sometimes listed as AMAP or AMAP Global, is easiest to find from your home store.
Amap's English build is a real product rather than a translation layer bolted on: Gaode launched it for inbound visitors and reports support for phone numbers from 65 countries and territories, including ride-hailing in English.
Download the offline maps for the cities on your route before you travel. They are the difference between a working app and a blank screen in a metro tunnel, and the moment to fetch them is the night before you move, over hotel wifi.
Getting your saved places across
There is no import button. There are three workable routes.
1. Export the list, rebuild the shortlist
Google Takeout will give you your saved places as a file. Open it, keep the twenty you actually intend to visit, and search each one in Amap by its Chinese name, saving as you go. Tedious, and it works. Amap's saved-places list accepts notes against each entry.
2. Use an offline map as the bridge
Organic Maps and OsmAnd both read GPX and KML, which you can export from your Google list, and both draw on OpenStreetMap, which is complete in Chinese cities. That gives you your pins on a usable map with no account. Coordinates carry across; the restaurant names do not.
3. Borrow a local collection
Amap lets a signed-in user share a saved collection with a contact. If a colleague or a hotel concierge already has a list, this is the fastest route into the app, and it arrives with Chinese names attached, which is what you want anyway.
Searching in English
English input works about half the time. These habits close the gap.
Start with the pinyin. Tiananmen, Jingansi, Wukang Road all resolve, because the app indexes the romanised form of official names.
If pinyin fails, search for the landmark beside the address rather than the address: the metro station, the mall, the hospital. Chinese navigation is built around the nearest big thing, and the staff you ask will do the same.
The most reliable method is copying. Open the booking confirmation, the review or the message from your host, and paste the Chinese characters into the search field. Amap matches characters better than it translates them.
A venue's phone number also resolves, which is useful when three branches share a name.
| You want | Search this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A hotel called Riverside | The Chinese name from the confirmation | English names are rarely the registered name |
| A restaurant | The characters copied from a review | Branches share names; characters plus district narrows it |
| A street address | Road name plus building number | Numbers are unique per road and resolve directly |
| An attraction | The pinyin, then the characters | Pinyin works for famous sites, rarely for small ones |
The English label you see in the app is often a transliteration of the road rather than the name of the building, which is why directions and titles appear to disagree. Trust the pinyin, and read the characters if you can match them.
Addresses, written the Chinese way
Big to small. Every time.
An English address runs from the door outwards: room, building, street, city, postcode. A Chinese address runs the other way, from the province down to the room. Reversing a translated address is the most common reason a search fails.
The order
- 1. Province or municipality — Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang.
- 2. District or county — Futian, Huangpu, Xihu.
- 3. Road — the street name, usually ending in the character for road or for street.
- 4. Building number — a number followed by the character for number.
- 5. Building, floor, room — three more characters, in that order, if it is a flat.
A real one, taken apart
广东省 · 深圳市 · 福田区 · 华强北路 · 1002号 · 3楼 · 301室
Guangdong province, Shenzhen city, Futian district, Huaqiang North Road, number 1002, third floor, room 301. Read it backwards into English and you have the same address in the order you expect.
Deliveries: the rider will call rather than read. Keep the phone answerable, and put the landmark in the notes field.
Two things to watch. Districts are renamed and merged often enough that old addresses persist; if a search returns nothing, drop the district and keep the road. And the number suffix sits behind the digits, not in front of them, which is where a translated address usually breaks.
On foot, in transit, in a taxi
One app does all three. Which one you use depends on the job.
Walking: Amap, and take the exit letter seriously. Chinese metro stations have up to twenty exits and the wrong one adds a ten-minute walk above ground. The app names the exit and often the carriage to board.
Transit: Amap, which shows bus arrivals and the fare. Apple Maps is cleaner to read and slightly behind on buses. Our metro guide covers payment, which is the part that catches visitors out.
Taxi: Didi rather than the map. The map will hail a car, but Didi's own app or its Alipay mini-program handles the fare, the destination in characters and the driver's messages. Our Didi guide walks through the ride itself.
Finding a shop or a restaurant: Dianping first, then copy the address into Amap. Reviews live there, and a shop that has closed is usually marked closed.
When it says it cannot find you
Four causes, in the order to check them.
Permission was granted once, then quietly withdrawn.
The fix: set location access to always rather than while using, and switch on background refresh. A phone that has been in low-power mode will have paused both.
You are indoors, or underground.
The fix: step outside and wait thirty seconds. No app places you better than a hundred metres without a view of the sky, and a shopping mall is a Faraday cage with escalators.
The offline map was never downloaded.
The fix: download the city before you need it, over hotel wifi. Offline packages cover routing and search; live traffic and bus times need a connection.
The app itself is out of date.
The fix: check the store for an update before reinstalling. Amap pushes data fixes through app updates rather than map refreshes.
Last resort, and a good one: hail a taxi and show the driver the Chinese address on your screen. Every driver knows the road, and most know the building.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions that come up in the first 24 hours.
Verified 2 November 2026 against Xinhua's July 2026 report on the English build of AMAP. Everything else on this page is app-level knowledge that changes with releases, so check the app you install, and treat the coordinate-system note as background rather than a citation.