Posted by Simon Banton, “Hengemaster,” Stonehenge Barrow Map

 Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from Simon Banton: software professional, Stonehenge enthusiast, and creator of the Stonehenge Barrow Map. With Google Maps Platform products and some help from the Google developer community, Banton built his map in just a few days, compiling the data and adding richer details in his spare time. Discover how you can start using Google Maps Platform to visualize your passion projects.
Posted by Simon Banton, “Hengemaster,” Stonehenge Barrow Map

 Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from Simon Banton: software professional, Stonehenge enthusiast, and creator of the Stonehenge Barrow Map. With Google Maps Platform products and some help from the Google developer community, Banton built his map in just a few days, compiling the data and adding richer details in his spare time. Discover how you can start using Google Maps Platform to visualize your passion projects.

My journey into mapmaking started when I came across a 200-year-old reference to an oddly deformed, 5,500-year-old skull buried in one of the 300 Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows (burial mounds) found within walking distance of the Stonehenge prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. When I can spare time away from my software business, I offer tours around this unique landscape and study the barrows myself. It’s fascinating to imagine who the barrows’ inhabitants were—like the one with the intriguingly deformed skull—and what their lives were like thousands of years ago.
Photo provided and licensed by http://www.stonesofstonehenge.org.uk
In the countryside around Stonehenge, one challenge is finding barrows and identifying them against records and maps that were created over a 200-year period. Early 1800s researchers published excellent guides to the barrows, but there were no authoritative maps and surveys of the area in those days. If you tried now to find a barrow using 200-year-old guides, modern databases wouldn’t have the same reference numbers. And, of course, there were no online sources that correlated and matched the barrow location data.

This was frustrating, so I pulled together a Google Sheets listing the barrows’ latitudes and longitudes and the numbering systems used by different authorities. I thought somehow this data could be visualized on a map. After some online searching, I discovered that I could use the Maps JavaScript API and the Google Charts “Map” visualization to pull the data from the spreadsheet, and I built the Stonehenge Barrow Map showing all the barrow locations.
It only took two days for me to create the basic map using the Charts visualization. After that, I spent one evening per week, over six months, adding barrow descriptions and images to the Google Sheet. The developers in the Google Maps forums were quick to answer my questions, such as when I needed help customizing pop-up boxes with information about each barrow. When users click on a point on the map, an info window appears with reference numbers and descriptions from 19th-century and modern-day researchers, links to data from government agencies and historical societies, and images of artifacts removed from barrows.

Using the Visualization Query Language, I added a search box to the map, where people can enter keywords to find barrows by all kinds of criteria, including what artifacts were found. Almost all the barrows have been plundered for their contents in the past few centuries, but happily a great many of these treasures eventually found their way into the wonderful museums in Devizes and Salisbury. 
Stonehenge enthusiasts and I use the Google Map when we’re carrying out research or conducting tours, and anyone can use it just to explore the barrows for themselves. We can enter the modern reference number for a barrow, like “Wilsford G30” or “MWI12489”, find it was known to the 19th-century antiquaries as barrow “Normanton 173,” and that it was the one which contained that very odd skull.

Not only are all the research links in one place, but we also get a visualization of the barrows around the Stonehenge landscape. That helps us ponder questions such as why barrows were clustered together, and which materials were buried where and at different times in prehistory.

I’ve had people ask me to expand my map to include the barrows in the Avebury landscape, or even those in the neighbouring counties of Dorset and Hampshire. That’d be an enormous undertaking, so it’s a project for someone else. To help anyone interested in pursuing that goal, I’ve kept the map code as simple as possible. I’ve posted the Google Docs barrow spreadsheet for download so other people can use it as a template for their own maps.

While much about the barrows remains a mystery—such as what happened to the skeleton of the person with the deformed skull—I’d like to think that future researchers, using Google Maps like mine, may help to uncover some of the answers.

Posted by Alison Cohen, Senior Director of Programs, WhyHunger

 Editor's Note: Today’s blog is the first in a series of posts highlighting our support for Google public programs. Eligible nonprofits, startups, crisis response, and news media organizations may apply for Google Maps Platform credits through Google for Nonprofits, the Google Cloud Startup Program, Google Crisis Response and the Google News Initiative.

This post comes from Alison Cohen, Senior Director of Programs for WhyHunger. The nonprofit helps communities develop sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. WhyHunger was able to access Google Maps Platform through Google for Nonprofits to build its Find Food map. Learn more about the products and resources available through Google for Nonprofits.
Posted by Alison Cohen, Senior Director of Programs, WhyHunger

 Editor's Note: Today’s blog is the first in a series of posts highlighting our support for Google public programs. Eligible nonprofits, startups, crisis response, and news media organizations may apply for Google Maps Platform credits through Google for Nonprofits, the Google Cloud Startup Program, Google Crisis Response and the Google News Initiative.

This post comes from Alison Cohen, Senior Director of Programs for WhyHunger. The nonprofit helps communities develop sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. WhyHunger was able to access Google Maps Platform through Google for Nonprofits to build its Find Food map. Learn more about the products and resources available through Google for Nonprofits.

When people are hungry, they may not know where to turn for food – and they may be hesitant to ask for help. At WhyHunger, we want to remove the barriers that keep people from getting the help they need to stay healthy and thrive. We support grassroots groups that are tackling hunger in their communities, such as food banks and meal programs. Google Maps brings our database of 23,000 emergency food providers to our website, so no one has to go hungry.
Photo by Diane Bondareff for WhyHunger
Many resources for food justice operate at the local level. We work to knit together organizations around the country that have the common goal of alleviating hunger and poverty – for example, sharing ideas for successful programs, and advocating for food as a basic human right. Our database is one way for us to look at food programs at a national level, and break down information so people can discover what’s available in the areas where they live. The WhyHunger Find Food tool uses Google Maps Platform to display food resources based on a zip code. The search results include phone numbers, addresses, and the type of programs available.
We applied to Google for Nonprofits to get access to the Google Maps Platform products that help us create and expand the Find Food map. We used the APIs to integrate data sources with the map, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s summer meals database. The Geocoding API converts addresses for food sources into points on the Find Food map. Because the addresses for the U.S.D.A. meals programs change frequently, the API does the heavy lifting when it comes to converting address data. Then, we use the Maps JavaScript API to display the maps once people enter their zip codes.

Accessing Google Maps through Google for Nonprofits also helps us cover the costs, as more people use the maps to search for food. If we didn’t have access to these programs, it would have taken us much longer to create the map, and we would not be able to quickly connect users to essential resources.
We started using Google Maps because the maps are easy to both build and use. People seeking food sources don’t need to wrestle with complicated maps. We briefly considered open-source map APIs, but they did not compare to Google Maps, which are the most accurate and comprehensive ones we’ve used. Accuracy is important for maps that show as many locations as ours do. We want people using our maps to see exact locations for food sources so they get what they need as quickly as possible.

We also rely on the maps ourselves: When people call our Hunger Hotline at 1-800-5HUNGRY, staff can quickly look at the Find Food map and tell callers what’s available locally and how to get there. People are now increasingly going directly to the maps instead of calling us first. Since the updated Find Food Map launched in 2015 an average of 9,000 people search the map per month, compared with 1,000 callers.

The time we save on coding maps and managing data is now spent on coming up with new ways to help hungry people get healthy food and address the root causes of hunger. When our Hunger Hotline service isn’t available, people can text a zip code to the hotline, and receive a text message with names and addresses of the 10 closest food sites. In the future, we hope to develop more ways to use Google Maps and our food program data to tackle hunger, community by community.

Posted by Amit Litsur, Product Manager, Google Maps Platform

Google is committed to supporting organizations with public programs that provide access to our products, people and resources. We're proud to support organizations like ...
Posted by Amit Litsur, Product Manager, Google Maps Platform

Google is committed to supporting organizations with public programs that provide access to our products, people and resources. We're proud to support organizations like Code.org, Charity:water, Hostelling International and more to connect people to resources and help visualize the impact their organizations are making in the communities where they serve.
Charity:water created a new way for donors to view exactly where their dollars go
With our recent launch of Google Maps Platform, in addition to nonprofits, we’re now able to offer startups, crisis responders and news organizations Google Maps Platform at a reduced rate, or at no cost to their organizations. We’re also increasing our availability from seven to 50 countries so we can support even more global communities and programs.
Falling Fruit helps urban foragers find available seasonal produce in their neighborhoods
Eligible organizations may apply for Google Maps Platform credits to support their organizations' efforts. You can learn more about eligibility and how to apply in our Understanding Public Programs page. If you are a nonprofit, startup, crisis response, or news media organization, we hope that you take advantage of these programs and apply for Google Maps Platform credits today.

Posted by the Google Maps Platform team

On May 2, we announced changes including our new simplified Maps, Routes, and Places products as well as a new pricing plan to make our products easier to use and more scalable as you grow. Here’s a quick reminder of the three steps you need to take prior to June 11 ...
Posted by the Google Maps Platform team

On May 2, we announced changes including our new simplified Maps, Routes, and Places products as well as a new pricing plan to make our products easier to use and more scalable as you grow. Here’s a quick reminder of the three steps you need to take prior to June 11:

  1. Set up a Google Cloud Platform Console account with your billing information.
  2. Ensure that you are using a valid API key to access our core products.
  3. Try the new features and learn more about how to optimize your API usage in our Optimization Guide.

To provide you with an additional month of lead time, our new terms and pricing won’t go into effect until July 16. If you have questions about the changes and the new pricing plan, please review the Important Updates page in our documentation. It will help you familiarize yourself with the changes and includes a new pricing calculator to help you understand your usage.