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Detailed locations of public facilities, including leisure and recreational spots and other useful land based information, are only one click away from the website provided by the Lands Department's "Community Map on Internet".

The Department's Survey and Mapping Office (SMO) has, in collaboration with two business partners, generated two digital maps on the web showing locations of police stations, fire stations, hospitals, post offices, libraries, swimming pools and even employment services centres.

By inputing the street and building names or addresses, places of interest such as shops, restaurants or property listings can also be searched and displayed on the screen.

Census statistical data and photographs of scenic spots of user selected area are available at the click of a mouse.

Deputy Director for Survey and Mapping, Mr Chan Hak said today (Sunday) that the Department is the central authority for land surveys and all types of mapping in Hong Kong.

Over 3,000 map sheets covering the whole of Hong Kong at various scales from 1:1000 to 1:100000 scale are produced for sale to the public.

The whole set of the 1:1000 scale maps in digital form has been maintained since 1996, Mr Chan added.

"Unlike the paper maps, the digital maps are seamless, i.e. the maps covering the whole territory can be read and navigated as one single map," he said.

"The map features are differentiated and uniquely coded and can connect to textual attributes; they are topologically structured and organized into different layers for easy retrieval and analysis of data, e.g. buildings, roads, contour lines."

The geographic information of a particular area can be searched by means of a number of commonly used identifiers such as the address, building name, street intersection and geographic coordinates. The digital maps are extensively used in government departments, utility companies, engineering consultants, property developers and education institutes.

In September 1998, SMO launched a map enquiry system for tourist information on Internet and more than 75,000 enquiries were made through the websitewww.lic.gov.hk/cmestdir/.

SMO then pursued the idea of using the government's bilingual digital map as a user-friendly platform for delivery of everyday life information to the community and eventually developed the "Community Map on Internet".

The project was awarded through open tender to the Centaline Property Agency Ltd. and the Telecom Directories Ltd. in April 1999.

Under the arrangement, the Lands Department supplies up-to-date bilingual digital map data, address references data and public service data while each business partner builds a website to deliver the mapping information and other add-on information to the public through Internet. The two website locations are:

HK City Map : www.hkcitymap.com/

Centamap : www.centamap.com/

Advertisement banners and the location indicators of the business like hotels, supermarkets, and banks in the web pages are sold thereby generating revenue which shared between the partners and the Government.

Mr Chan said, "The joint venture will enable more flexible and quicker adoption of new technology to improve on the services. At the same time, the partners will make use of their business and marketing expertise to exploit diversified services and respond to market needs."

"The system provides a map guide service with the usual map browsing, zooming and panning functions for searching the locations of place of interest by roaming across the digital maps," he added.

The digital map is used as a platform for displaying different community information originating from the public and private sectors.

Through the map interface, the public can find other add-on information like shops, restaurants, property listings and photographs of scenic spots provided by the business partners. Maps displayed on the computer monitor can be downloaded for printing.

The systems offer great convenience for finding daily life information both for work and leisure. In two months time since launching in November, 1999, the total number of page view on government's digital maps recorded in these two web sites is over 3,000,000.

When the Government launches the Electronic Services Delivery (ESD) Scheme in the latter half of year 2000 for the delivery of public services and information through a diversity of on-line access devices, the ESD Scheme will connect to this project by dedicated data links.

SMO and its partners will continue to enrich the content of the sites by integrating more public facility and amenity information into the mapping platform.

The public are welcome to visit these two websites and feedback any comments to the SMO at telephone no. 2231 3840 and fax no. 2521 8726.

End/Sunday, February 13, 2000

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