Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Maridav

The OS Maps app from Britain’s Ordnance Survey has been launched in New Zealand, containing thousands of ready-made trails for trampers and bushwalkers.

Users can also produce and plot their own walks, runs and cycle routes as well as downloading maps and routes for offline use — useful for remote areas where there is no mobile phone signal.

A variety of map layers are available, including standard street-view maps, NZ Topographic mapping and aerial satellite imagery. Users can also visualise routes in 3D and fly-through a route to get a preview of the terrain and difficulty level.

The mapping data comes from Mapbox and OpenStreetMap, with topographic mapping data provided by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Ordnance Survey first launched OS Maps in Great Britain in 2015. It has become the country’s most popular navigation app with over 3.5 million users, enabling Brits to navigate with the most up to date mapping as well as providing access to over 1.5 million routes covering 48 million kilometres.

The first international launch of OS Maps came in February 2021, when it was introduced to Australia, where it received 85,000 downloads within the first months of release.

OS has further plans to introduce the app around the world in other regions including the USA, Canada and mainland Europe.

OS Maps is available to download for free from the Apple and Google Play app stores, with premium subscriptions priced at $6.99 NZD for a monthly plan or $39.99 NZD for an annual plan.

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