Google Maps is one of the most popular web based mapping platforms with expanding coverage into new geographies. Recently the coverage of detailed maps now includes countries ranging from Chile to Zimbabwe to Vietnam. In order to improve maps in emerging countries, Google has launched Google Map Maker in more than 160 countries world wide. A quick look at Map Maker reveals lots more detailed data which users have added or edited.
The Google Geo Developers Blog features a post called ‘Map Maker for Developers’. This post discusses Google’s response to user requests for adding Map Maker tiles as new map types to both the Google JavaScript Maps API (v2.146) and the Static Maps API. So if you have a Google maps mashup that is primarily used in one of these emerging countries or you simply want to embed a fresh map in your blog post or web page, you can use these maps that are updated every day by the map maker community. Quite exciting! Below see an example of the Static Map API requests for the town of Kogelo Nyang’oma in Kenya, the ancestral town of President Barack Obama.

http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=31.494445,74.334011&zoom=15&size=256×256&key=API_KEY&sensor=false

http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=31.494445,74.334011&zoom=15&size=256×256&maptype=mapmaker-Roadmap&key=API_KEY&sensor=false