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How to Use Google Maps to View a World Map of Recent Earthquakes
Google has created a number of so-called “Map Mashups” where they merge their maps with other significant data. In this case, they have merged a world map with data on where recent earthquakes have happened as well as their strength on the Richter scale.
How Do I View the Earthquake Map?
The map of recent earthquakes can be viewed by clicking here. Here is what you will see:
As you can see, this map tells you the strength of the earthquakes and when they occurred. It doesn’t show scales that were under a magnitude four because those simply aren’t as exciting.
Yellow earthquakes occurred in the past week, orange in the past day, and if you’re lucky enough to be viewing right after one has occurred, you will see a red dot for earthquakes that have happened in the last hour. Have fun!
Another Way To Access This Data
You can also access this map as well as many other maps that Google has made available (some of which we will feature in the future) by going to the Google Maps Directory.
Here is a screen shot of the Google Maps Directory:
From here, you can choose any one of the four categories on the left hand side of the screen to browse the different maps.
I have found it easier to just search for a certain map that I’m looking for in the search box at the top of the screen.
If you have any questions about these enhanced Google Maps, just leave your words below.
How to Use Google Yellowpages to Find Any Local Business
Last month, I wrote about using Google as Your Whitepages phonebook. Today, I am going to describe how you can use Google as your Yellowpages as well.
Although Google seems to be an abstract company, they know about businesses that are just around the corner to where you live! All you have to do is think of a business category and then type in your location. You can use just a zip code, or a city and state.
For example, when my wife and I moved to Pittsburgh, we wanted to find out about the local pizzerias. All I had to do was type pizza, 15216 into a Google search box. Here’s what I got:
As you can see, Google shows me a map of my local area and then shows me where each pizzeria is located. This is nice, as I can quickly see which ones are closest to where I live. Google also lists the website and phone number of each establishment.
At the bottom of this page is a link that says More results near Pennsylvania 15216 >> If I click on this, I am taken to a more in-depth page of my results.
Here is what that in-depth page looks like:
This page gives you more information about some of the pizzerias. You will notice that Google now offers to give you driving directions to any one of these pizza kitchens.
You’ll also notice that for some of the businesses, Google displays reviews that other internet users have written. For example, on the last business a reviewer says she “saw a lady drop a tomatoe on the floor and pick it up and put it in someones salad.” I’ll be sure to avoid that place — especially if a tomatoe is a cross between a toe and a tomato. That doesn’t sound good at all.
At the very top of this page, you’ll find that Google has opened up a little Find businesses tab for you that you can use to find most any business. If you would like to access a Google Find businesses page for yourself without going through a standard Google search box, click here.
To show the power of the Google Yellowpages, let’s try searching for a medical profession in a remote area of the USA. We’ll try dentists in Provo, Utah. Here’s what we get:
This page looks similar to the previous one. I performed one more search just to demonstrate the power and versatility of Google’s Yellowpages.
You may notice that once you get through a few pages of results that they aren’t really relevant to what you searched for. This seems to happen on all searches. After all, you’ll notice that Google found 1,843 dentists in Provo…
Go ahead and try searching in your own city!
How to Use Google to Find a Map of Any City In North America
Have you ever been in an unfamiliar place and wanted to find your way around? As long as you have internet access, you don’t need to pay a penny for a map.
How to Find Maps Using Google
In order to find a map, all you need to do is type the word map, followed by a city and state into a Google Search box and Google will bring up a map of that particular city at the top of the search results, as you can see below.
As you can see, right on the results page, Google allows you to easily get directions to the city that you had searched for.
To view a map of the city, simply click on the image of the map or click on the name of the city that is underlined in blue. In this case, you can easily click on the image of the map or on the New Wilmington, PA link.
After clicking, Google will bring up the Google Maps interface. It may look a little complicated, but it is fairly easy to use.
At the top left you will see four directional arrow keys. These keys allow you to scroll around and move the map to the left, right, up, or down. In the middle of these buttons is a button that says Return to the last result if you hover over it. This button allows you to go back in case you scrolled over too far or zoomed in too much. You can use it like an undo button to take back the last thing that you did.
Below those buttons, you will see a plus and a minus button with a long line and a slider between them. This control area allows you to zoom in and zoom out to get a closer or broader view of the map.
Across the top of the map, you will see other buttons like Street View, More, Map, Satellite, and Terrain that we will cover more in later articles here at Easy Googler.
If you zoom in on the map and reposition it, you will get the following:
You may notice the little pink marker with the letter A. This simply points to the location that you are trying to map. In this case, the marker points to what Google Maps considers to be the central point of New Wilmington, PA.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!
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