Topographic maps of Scandinavia on your phone
A 2015 MapApp Topo update added Denmark and Finland to its Android mapping coverage, joining Sweden and Norway with downloadable topographic maps.
In a February 2015 update, WinguSoft AB, owned by brothers Peter and Kristian Jaksch, expanded its Android app MapApp Topo to include Denmark and Finland alongside Sweden and Norway.
“A major advantage is that the maps for Sweden and Norway are continuous,” Peter explained. “That makes it possible to get good maps across the Swedish–Norwegian border, something previous solutions had not provided.”
MapApp Topo offered high-resolution topographic maps for activities such as hiking, mountain biking, kayaking and hunting. It could display the user’s position and compass bearing, create points of interest, log routes, and import and export them. A distance-measuring tool was also included.
The app had developed considerably since its launch in early 2014. “We have had a good dialogue with several users, listened to their feedback and added requested features,” Peter said. Map data came from each country’s mapping authority. The standard scale was 1:50,000, with 1:100,000 used in parts of Sweden’s mountain range. Denmark’s maps were available at 1:25,000, providing significantly more detail.
“We hope to offer that scale as standard in the future, since we can now create our own maps from raw data,” Kristian said.
MapApp Topo was free to download from Google Play. For each included country, users could download a free overview map at 1:1,000,000 scale, then buy high-resolution topographic map tiles within it. A 25 × 25 km tile cost SEK 20.
Plans included further expansion across Europe and a feature allowing groups of users to see one another’s positions, potentially useful during searches for missing people.
