Help for the Chronically Lost: A Street View Map of Beijing

We're not sure why nobody else is hooting and hollering with joy, but we're thrilled to discover that a new online map has made Beijing more accessible than ever. Soso Maps has launched a street-level mapping service, which covers Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chengdu and several other cities that are tourist destinations. The Tencent-backed search engine apparently launched the service last December, but it seems not (yet) to have garnered the buzz that it deserves.

Similar to Google's StreetView, this map function gives you a panoramic view of neighborhoods around the city. The intuitive navigation is great for finding landmarks when you need to go somewhere you've never been before. Some might call it a godsend for the directionally challenged.

Here are some of the features:

• Arrows indicating North, South, East, West help you keep your bearings
• All locations of note are labeled with a relative distance
• A pop-up map in the bottom right corner allows you to search for different locations easily

You can get a very cool digital tour of the Forbidden City.

You can even trek along the Great Wall.

The largest drawback is that the service is in Chinese only. However, dropping pinyin in the search bar works well enough and you can just use your eyes and mouse from there. We tried National Library (Guojia Tushuguan), and the link popped up in the left column immediately. It's easy enough – why not give it a try?

And once you've tried it out for yourself, feel free to drop us a note in the comments section below. Will Soso's mapping service change the way you find your way around Beijing?