We all know that online maps are useful — very useful sometimes. The other day, I came across a Swiss Map Search that intrigued me with its technical approach. http://map.search.ch uses a RESTful approach to mapping, composed of the base URL and as location, the city slash street and, if needed, the street number.

If you want to see a map of the famous “Paradeplatz” in Zürich, you simply type the following URL:

http://map.search.ch/zürich/paradeplatz/

And if you wanted Bahnhofstrasse No 1, you’d simply enter the following URL:

http://map.search.ch/zürich/bahnhofstrasse-1/

If you add a template to Quicksilver Searches, you have map search at your fingertips. Cool. Instant information about the places you’re going to spend all your money at when you visit Switzerland ;)

So, let’s see. Norman Walsh’s been in Basel some time ago. He made some beautiful shots of the Münster Statuary. Wanna know where the “Münsterplatz” is? Easy:

http://map.search.ch/basel/münsterplatz/

I’d love to see more services like this one. I think you could even expand it to international map searches, maybe even route planning, if you carefully choose the URL layout. Any Maporama guys out there?

As a side-note for Photomatt: They’re using WordPress 1.2 on their about page. It’s in German, though.