Finding your way: map apps in China for foreign visitors
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Google Maps does not work in mainland China — not badly, not slowly, but not at all, and even a VPN leaves it tens to hundreds of metres off the real street. The two apps that do work are Chinese, extraordinarily good, and built for people who read Chinese. Here is how a foreign visitor gets a route, a metro exit and a taxi out of them anyway.
Install Amap — specifically the overseas build, AMap Global — before you fly. It is the only one of China’s two dominant map apps with a genuinely English end-to-end experience: English menus, English place search (Amap claims 63 languages for search), and English ride-hailing across 360+ cities, with support for phone numbers from 65 countries. Baidu Maps is the better dataset — deeper points of interest, building entrances, small-town coverage — but its English mode, launched in January 2025, is partial: menus may translate, while search results, reviews and driver chat stay Chinese. If you have an iPhone, Apple Maps works with zero setup and a native English interface, but is thinner on transit and small venues. Google Maps is not a fallback; it has been blocked since 2010 and uses a coordinate system China does not permit, so pins land in the wrong place even through a VPN. The practical skill is not which app — it is searching without Chinese: English for landmarks and chains, pinyin for stations and roads, and a pasted Chinese address for everything else. Get that right and the metro network — 50+ cities, ¥2–10 a ride, bilingual signage, foreign cards accepted at the gate in five cities — becomes the easiest part of the trip.
China Arrive is not affiliated with Amap, AutoNavi, Baidu, Google, or Apple. The phones on this page are illustrated screens, not photographs of the app. Menus move — if a label differs, follow the screen in front of you.
- Apps that work2Amap and Baidu. Google Maps returns nothing useful.
- Metro fare¥2–10Typical fare in any big city
- Urban rail50+Cities with a metro, 10,000 km and more
- Card at the gate5 citiesWhere a foreign card taps at the gate
- Google Maps0Useful results inside mainland China
Jump to a section: verdict · four maps · before you fly · search · route screen · metro · last 300 metres · when it is wrong · extras · checklist and phrases
The verdict in four lines
Assessed for a two-week visitor with an English phone, a foreign SIM or eSIM, and no Chinese.
- Amap GlobalInstall this firstEnglish end to end, taxi built in, transit and walking solid, visitor guides and phrase cards.
- Baidu MapsThe power toolBest POI depth and building entrances; English is partial and search works best in Chinese.
- Apple MapsZero setupNative English on iPhone, works without a VPN. Weaker transit detail and small venues.
- Google MapsNot an optionBlocked since 2010; even with a VPN its China data is offset and stale.
The single most useful decision: install AMap Global plus one backup (Apple Maps on iPhone, Baidu if you might paste Chinese addresses). Then, before you leave home, save your hotel, the airport and the main station as Chinese-name screenshots. That one folder of screenshots solves more navigation problems than any setting.
Four maps, one that works
China runs on its own mapping stack for reasons of law and licensing. The differences below are not cosmetic — they decide whether a route exists at all.
| App | English | Works without a VPN | Transit | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMap Global 高德地图 · AutoNavi |
Full | Yes | Metro, bus, walk, drive, bike | The default. Separate international build, English interface and English ride-hailing; also copes with English place names for landmarks and hotel chains. |
| Baidu Maps 百度地图 |
Partial | Yes | Excellent, including local buses | The second opinion. Deepest POI and building-entrance data, best in small towns and hutongs. English map launched January 2025, Beijing first; search and ride flow stay Chinese. |
| Apple Maps iPhone only |
Full | Yes | Good, but no live bus times | Zero-friction option. English by default, clean UI, no account. Thinner on small venues and station-exit detail than the Chinese apps. |
| Google Maps Blocked |
Full | No | Stale or absent | Do not plan around it. Blocked since 2010. With a VPN, tiles load slowly and positions are offset by 50–500 m because China mandates the GCJ-02 coordinate system. |
What “offset” actually means. Chinese law requires licensed maps to use GCJ-02, an obfuscated coordinate system; your phone’s GPS reports WGS-84. Foreign apps that do not convert between them draw your blue dot on the wrong side of the road — which is fine for a city overview and disastrous for a 200-metre walk to a specific door. This is why “just use Google with a VPN” fails in practice, not just in theory.
Both Chinese apps work without a Chinese phone number for maps and navigation. A foreign SIM or data-only eSIM is enough. Logging in only adds saved places and sync; Amap explicitly supports registration with numbers from 65 countries.
Set up before you fly
Do this at home, on Wi-Fi, where the App Store works normally and you are not standing in arrivals with luggage. The site-wide list is the pre-trip checklist.
1 Install the right build 5 min
Search the App Store or Google Play for AMap Global (developer: AutoNavi / Alibaba). The domestic app 高德地图 is a different listing with a different default experience — the global one is the English-first build.
Add a backup: Apple Maps is already on an iPhone; on Android, install Baidu Maps as the second opinion. Two apps weigh nothing and cover each other’s gaps.
Only install from the official store. Clones targeting tourists exist and ask for location and contacts.
2 Switch the language 1 min
The app usually opens in Chinese. The path is consistent across both Chinese apps:
Me / 我的 → Settings / 设置 → General / 通用 → Language / 语言 → English
Amap restarts in English; street names, metro lines and menus translate, while some restaurant and shop names stay Chinese because that is how the business registered itself. That is normal, not a failed setting.
In Baidu Maps the same path may or may not exist depending on version and store region — if there is no language entry, do not reinstall repeatedly. Use screen translation or move to Amap.
English UI does not mean English content. Reviews, driver messages and small-shop names remain Chinese in every one of these apps.
3 Grant precise location, then download the city 10 min
Allow location while using and switch on precise location. Without it, the blue dot snaps to cell towers and you will appear blocks away in dense districts.
Then download offline maps: Me → Offline Maps → city. A Chinese city pack is typically 50–150 MB. Do it for every city on the itinerary, on Wi-Fi.
Test it properly: turn on airplane mode and confirm the map, your saved pins and basic routing still draw. Live traffic, bus arrivals and taxi-hailing will not — those need data.
4 Save the hotel — in Chinese 5 min
Search your hotel in English if it is an international brand; otherwise copy the Chinese name and address from your booking confirmation and paste it into search. Save it with the star icon, and drop a pin on the exact entrance if the result looks vague.
Do the same for the airport, the main railway station and one landmark near the hotel. These four pins are your anchors for the whole trip.
Screenshot the Chinese address too. It is the only version a taxi driver, a shopkeeper or a police officer can read.
5 Link a payment method for taxis 5 min
Amap’s ride-hailing runs inside the app and settles through Alipay or WeChat Pay. If you have already linked a foreign card to either wallet, you are done. If not, do that before you land — it also covers metro QR codes, shared bikes and convenience stores.
You can also skip Amap’s taxi feature entirely and use DiDi, which has its own English interface. The two compete on price and wait time; Amap compares roughly a hundred platforms at once.
Searching without Chinese
This is the skill that decides whether the app works. English gets you the Forbidden City; it will not get you a noodle shop. Work down this ladder.
English — for landmarks, airports, stations, hotel chains
Big POIs are indexed in English, and Amap accepts queries in dozens of languages. Type it as you would at home.
Forbidden City · The Bund · Marriott Pudong · People’s Square StationPinyin — for roads, metro stations and districts
Works in both apps, and is often more precise than the English translation. Drop the tone marks and keep the spaces.
Nanjing Lu · Tiananmen · Jing’an · Chunxi RoadChinese characters — for everything else
Copy from your booking, a ticket, a menu photo or a message, and paste. This is the only method that reliably finds small restaurants, guesthouses, clinics and offices.
上海外滩酒店 · 老吉士酒家 · 虹桥火车站What does not work
English names of small local businesses, romanised shop names, and approximations of dishes. If a search returns nothing, do not refine the English — switch to pinyin or paste the characters.
Same name, different place. Chinese cities are full of duplicate names — three “Nanjing Road” results, two “People’s Square” pins, a “Jinjiang Hotel” in every province. Before you tap Navigate, check the district and the photo. This single check prevents most wrong-destination taxi rides.
Anatomy of a Chinese address
Read right to left in importance: the number gets you to the gate, the district stops you going to the wrong side of the city.
Shanghai
Huangpu
Nanjing East Rd
No. 300
7th floor
Two characters worth recognising: 弄 (lane, lòng) marks an alley entrance off the main road, and 近 (near, jìn) means the address is approximate. 大厦 (dàshà) is an office tower — the shop inside may be on the 12th floor, and the pin will sit at the tower’s centre, not its lobby.
Reading a route screen
Every Chinese map app shows the same six things in roughly the same order. Learn them once and the screen stops being a wall of characters.
- Mode tabs. Walk, transit, drive, cycle. “公交” means public transport and covers both bus and metro.
- Time, fare, stop count. The first number is door to door, not train time. Fares are exact, not estimates.
- The walking leg. Chinese apps are honest here: 280 m means 280 m, usually with stairs and a crossing.
- The exit letter. The most valuable number on the screen. Stations have 5–20 exits; the wrong one costs 10 minutes and a street crossing.
- Transfer station, by name. Check the line number and direction, not just the station — interchanges can be a 400 m indoor walk.
- Start, then follow the blue dot. In Amap, metro routes also name the carriage that puts you nearest the exit at the far end.
Screenshot the route before you go underground. Platform-level signal is unreliable, and the one thing you need at the bottom of an escalator — which exit, which direction — is exactly what will not load. A screenshot costs two seconds and survives the tunnel.
The metro is the workhorse
Fast, cheap, bilingual, and increasingly open to your own bank card. For any trip over two stops, it beats a taxi on both time and money.
| City | Hours (approx.) | Pay at the gate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beijing | 05:00–23:30 | Tap Visa / Mastercard / Amex / JCB / UnionPay | The most open system in the country — foreign cards at every gate since 2024–25. |
| Shanghai | 05:00–22:30 | Tap at select stations; Alipay QR | Metro app and Alipay both issue a QR; some lines run later on Friday and Saturday. |
| Guangzhou | 06:00–23:00 | Tap foreign card; Alipay QR | Airport and high-speed rail are both on the network. |
| Shenzhen | 06:00–23:00 | Tap foreign card (all gates, since Sep 2026) | Bilingual gates and English AI agents at 1,255 ticket machines. |
| Chengdu | 06:00–22:30 | Tap foreign card; Alipay QR | Two airports on the network; pandas require a bus at the end. |
| Others | 06:00–22:30 | Alipay QR, ticket machine, cash | Machines have an English button; cash and small notes are accepted. |
Last train is earlier than station closing time. The timetable shows the last departure, often 22:30–23:30, and interchanges stop accepting transfers a few minutes before that. If your dinner runs late, check the last train before you order dessert — a ¥25 taxi is the usual consequence, and a ¥60 one if it rains.
The gate will not open if your card is not set up for tap-and-go. It must be contactless, with small-amount payments and no-PIN enabled. If you have never tapped that card at home, turn the setting on in your banking app before you fly — a rush-hour gate is a bad place to discover it is off.
The last 300 metres
Every navigation failure in China looks the same: the map is right, the pin is right, and you are standing outside a wall. This is where trips actually go wrong.
Three rules that fix most of it. One: navigate to the entrance, not the name — search the mall’s north entrance, or drop a pin on the door. Two: in Baidu, open street view and look at the actual shopfront before you walk. Three: if the dot spins or drifts, you are in a canyon of towers — step into the open, or ask with the Chinese address on screen.
Why the pin is wrong
Not a bug — a data model. Chinese POIs are registered as polygons or building footprints, and the pin is placed at the centroid. For a tower with a mall podium, that point can be inside a wall, on the third floor, or in a courtyard you cannot enter from the street. The address is correct; the geometry is just not a door.
Why the walk is longer
Compounds, ring roads, barriers. Big Chinese developments are gated superblocks. A destination 150 m away can require a 700 m walk to the vehicle gate and back. If a route looks absurd, it usually is not the app’s fault — there is a fence. Look for the nearest gate (大门) and route to that instead.
When the map is wrong
Eight failures, ordered by how often they happen to visitors, with the fix that actually works.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Pin lands on a building, no entrance | POI centroid, not a door | Search the entrance, or long-press the map to drop a custom pin at the door you can see. |
| Route wants a 700 m detour | Gated compound or median barrier | Route to the compound gate, then walk. Ignore the “as the crow flies” distance. |
| No transit result for an obvious trip | Station name mismatch, or mode still on “drive” | Switch to 公交; search the station in pinyin; try the other app. |
| Blue dot drifts or spins | Urban canyon, indoor, or precise location off | Enable precise location, step outside, calibrate by walking a few metres in a figure-eight. |
| App still Chinese after switching | UI translated, content not | Expected. Screenshot-translate menus; content stays Chinese by design. |
| Nothing loads underground | No signal on platforms and tunnels | Screenshot the route and exit letter before the escalator. Offline maps do not include live arrivals. |
| Taxi pin is on the wrong side of the road | Pickup point auto-set by the app | Drag the pickup pin to a named landmark, then message the driver the landmark in Chinese. |
| Search returns nothing at all | English query for a local business | Paste the Chinese name. This solves it more often than any other single action. |
What these apps do that yours does not
Chinese map apps are super-apps for the street. Six features worth knowing about, because they solve problems you will actually have.
- 01 · Live busNext bus in 3 minReal arrival times for every city bus, plus which door to board. This is the single biggest upgrade over Western mapping.
- 02 · Traffic lightsCountdown at the kerbAmap shows the remaining seconds on the signal ahead — useful when the pedestrian light is out of sight.
- 03 · Taxi compare~100 platformsOne request, quoted across every ride-hailing company, with wait times. Usually cheaper than hailing on the street.
- 04 · Shared bikesBikes on the mapLive locations, battery levels for e-bikes, and the parking-zone boundary — the thing that decides whether you can end the ride. Street rental itself is in the shared bike guide.
- 05 · Indoor mapsMalls and stationsFloor plans for major malls and interchanges — which floor a shop is on, which exit a line uses.
- 06 · AR walkingCamera arrowsHold the phone up and arrows overlay the real street. Genuinely useful at a six-way junction with no legible signage.
One more thing worth setting up: offline city packs plus saved pins. Together they mean that losing signal in a metro tunnel, a basement mall or a mountain scenic area costs you nothing. Search is the first thing to fail without data; saved places and downloaded maps are the last.
Checklist and phrases
Ten minutes of setup at home, six sentences on the street.
Before you fly
- Install AMap Global from the official store.
- Add a backup: Apple Maps or Baidu Maps.
- Switch the interface to English and restart.
- Allow precise location; test the blue dot indoors and out.
- Download offline maps for every city, then test in airplane mode.
- Save hotel, airport, main station and one landmark as pins.
- Screenshot every address in Chinese characters.
- Link Alipay or WeChat Pay for metro QR and taxis.
- Enable contactless, no-PIN payments on your bank card.
- Install a translation app that works in China — not Google Translate.
On the street
- Check the district and photo before tapping Navigate.
- Note the exit letter before going underground.
- Screenshot the route — signal dies on platforms.
- Route to the gate or entrance, not the building name.
- If search fails, paste the Chinese — do not retype English.
- Keep the hotel’s Chinese address card in your wallet.
- Check the last train before a late dinner.
- If the taxi pin is ambiguous, drag it to a landmark.
Sources and method. Compiled from Amap’s own announcement of its English/multilingual build (63-language place search, 65-country phone login, ride-hailing in 360+ cities), the Shanghai municipal government’s July 2026 note on Amap visitor services, Baidu’s January 2025 English map launch and its developer English-map service, App Store listings checked November 2026, the June 2026 Ministry of Commerce guide to working and living in China (metro tap-to-ride in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu), Shenzhen Metro’s September 2026 nationwide-card rollout, and operator timetables. Metro hours and card acceptance vary by line and change often — check the gate signage or the operator’s site on the day.
Prepared November 2026. Prices and app behaviour change; the search ladder does not.