Offline map browser on Android with offline search

Question

I'm looking for an offline map browsing application for an Android phone. Absolute requirements:

• Runs on Android.
• Provides downloadable offline maps for the places I travel to. OpenStreetMap as a map source covers this requirement, so it can be met by allowing to download OSM data.
• I must be able to easily download at least the map for a town and its suburbs. The larger the region the better. (The snippets you can download on Google Maps are several orders of magnitude too small.)
• The application must be suitable for navigating based on the downloaded maps. For example, given a street address, I must be able to search this address on the map.
• The application must be able to show the GPS position on the map (“where am I?”).
• Show transportation information (“where's does bus 42 stop?”).

Nice to have:

• Allow downloading a large area (e.g. a whole country), as much as my phone's storage capacity permits.
• Show both local names and transliterated names, for locales that don't use the Latin alphabet.
• Show extra data such as museums, restaurants, etc.
• Search for tourist attractions, restaurants, etc.
• Link to real-time transportation information when online.
• Pedestrian, cycling, driving and public transport directions.
• Free.

Answer 1

OsmAnd is the best choice:

• Runs on android
• Map of whole world and specific countries as well.
• You can easily create your own map. map updated in regular basis. easier to manage map layers.
• Best for navigation, computation is completely offline and refreshed with change in gps position
• many search options, by name, by coordinates, by address
• gps position on map. orient map acoording to north up, compass or direction of movement
• Shows Transportation info. (havent tried this one)
• Shows Transliterated names (haven't tried this also)
• show and search much more.
• there is a free version and also a paid version with plugins.

Answer 2

You can find some candidates in the answers to App for Android that reads Open Street Map data but can be used as a GPS or for Directions. My recommendation again is Locus Maps, which seems to match all the features you requested:

• runs on Android
• tons of map sources (including OSM), more available via the Map Tweak addon
• easy download via the integrated "map downloader". Select from a bunch of options, like "actual screen", country (so this optional wish is granted as well), area along a trac, rectangle, ... Even select zoom levels you want to include.
• of course navigates on offline (and online) maps. Just requires a connection for route calculation, not for the navigation itself (so e.g. calculate while still on WiFi in your hotel, check a nearby "free WiFi" café, or temporarily enable mobile data for route calculation only should all work).
• GPS position on map is an essential for a navigation app, so it's naturally supported. Arrow points even where you're looking. If that's not enough, install the AR addon to have POIs pointed out in camera view for additional orientation.
• didn't check for transportation. But if there are maps/layers available, you should be able to include them.
• Extra data can even be integrated from .kmz files (including images and more), for a complete offline guide. Used it this way several times, works great.

^{Online Voice Navigation, Map Download, OpenStreetMap (click images for larger variants)}

Locus Maps (as linked above) comes as free (ad supported) version, use it this way as long as you wish. If you find it's worth it, buy the pro to get rid of the adds, and use some bonus features as well.

Answer 3

You can also try Maps.Me (previously known as MapsWithMe). It has most features you need:

• Allows to download whole countries
• Uses OpenStreetMap data
• Shows many POIs
• Can search for addresses, or shops, restaurants, or other attractions
• Works offline
• Can use GPS to show your location on the map
• Can store downloaded files on SD card
• Free of charge

The full version is now available free of charge (it used to have separate Pro and Lite versions). I used pro version for travel to Barcelona and haven't any issues. It can import KML file from Google Custom Maps and shows it bookmarks on map.

There are no ads at all and no layers limits. Pro version has: offline search on the map, bookmarking places, map rotating, sharing bookmarks, auto-follow mode. I must note that I have no affiliation with developer or publisher. I tried several similar apps and found this one the most suitable for me.

Answer 4

I've been using Sygic for a while, and it served me good.

Random Online picture of the app:

Features that I found useful:

• Offline maps, can navigate without the need of the internet + the ability to download more maps.
• Search for street or POI (Place Of Interest), find the nearest ATM, Gas station etc.
• Can view options for several routes
• Add places or current place (location) to favorites.
• Extract your current position/address and place it in your default email/SMS application in order to share location. You can view your coordinates by just tabbing on the arrow.
• Customizable information bar.
• ETA, speed etc info.
• Google Local Search.
• Settings for voice guidance, with male/female sounds and different accent and units/metric systems.
• Switch between walk/drive mode.
• 2d (top view) /3d (side angular view) options.
• Day/night-auto map view.

Available features that I came across but didn't actually use.

• Police traps reports
• Weather info
• Travel Book, keep track of your trips.
• SOS -> view your last known position address and coordinates, show the nearest hospital and police station, gas station, pharmacy.

Some disadvantages as compared to other apps:

• it's not free, but I didn't purchase it though it was already installed on my device.
• Not the fastest app to launch.

n.b I used this app on Samsung Galaxy Note1 for Kuala Lumpur map.

Screenshots:

Answer 5

I've used Navit a few times when I've needed offline navigation. You can download and install the maps per country you need free(and they aren't very large), and it works alright. I did find that you need to set the search country to where you are separately for the search to work on the version on google play but the SVN version is fine. Other than that, it does fairly standard nav-programish things pretty well. I never really had performance issues with it on my old phone You can download the countries you need (and the files are not that large) and it seems accurate in telling you where you are. I'm not sure about language - the places I used it in use latin scripts.

It works without any network connection needed outside downloading the maps - you can either do this by hitting the menu (or 'switch apps' button). and selecting the maps you want to download. Considering a world map is ~8gb, and you can download regional or per country maps you're looking at at most 200 MB for a country map. I personally found I had to restart navit to get it to read the downloaded map, but YMMV. Once it works it works. You apparently can also download custom map areas here, and drop it into a folder. It uses OSM data, so is as good or as bad as the version they're using.

The UI is pretty standard - since its a drop in replacement for many car GPS units, and you have a night mode and a day mode, psudo 3d and the usual POI options.

I'd note that for some reason, the version of navit on the google play store isn't the latest, and for a more recent version you can download an SVN snapshot right from their page.

Answer 6

In my experience the best such app is the open-source OsmAnd. From the Project Site (at Google Code):

Global Mobile Map Viewing & Navigation for Offline and Online OSM Maps

OsmAnd (OSM Automated Navigation Directions)

This project aims at providing comfortable map viewing and navigation (routing) application for mobile devices. Particluar stress lies with complete offline features (via pre-loaded offline map data) or economic internet usage.

For more screenshots:

With respect to the requested functionalities:

• Runs on Android
• Provides downloadable offline maps using OSM data
• Allows downloads for large regions
• Is suitable for navigating based on the downloaded maps (from personal experience!)
• Displays the GPS position on the map
• Can show transportation information, but also museums, restaurants, etc. (via the OSM Points of Interest, or POI)
• Pedestrian, cycling, driving and public transport directions.
• Is free and open-source

OsmAnd~ can be easily installed from F-Droid, the catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The version provided there comes with no limitations (contrary to the free version of OsmAnd on Google Market).

Answer 7

Nokia HERE is a relevant option that has grown big in the span of less than a year (2015) [>5 million downloads on Google Play].

• free
• runs on Android
• provides downloadable offline maps for entire countries
• can integrate with GPS and provide directions/navigation

Answer 8

I use Genius Maps, which has the following features:

• non-free
• runs on iOS 7.1 (and Android 2.2 and up)
• have maps of the USA, Canada and Bahamas, as well as many other countries
• is able to show the GPS position on the map (“where am I?”).
• Map data from Navteq
• is suitable for navigating based on the downloaded maps – and can easily download an entire country:

^{Navigation and download (click images for larger variants)}

• Show extra data such as museums, restaurants, etc.
• Allows you to search for a location:

^{Search (click for larger variant)}

But it does not show transportation information (“where's does bus 42 stop?”).

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List of all countries with maps:

• EUROPE: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, FYROMacedonia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican City
• NORTH AMERICA: USA Central, USA North East, USA South East, USA West Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, Canada, Mexico
• ASIA/PACIFIC: Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore. Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
• CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA: Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Martinique, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Barthelemy, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela
• MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA: Angola, Bahrain, Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Israel, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Answer 9

I am going to recommend Maps - Navigation & Transit by Google.

Based on your absolute requirements:

• Runs on Android. Check
• Provides downloadable offline maps for the places I travel to. Check

• I must be able to easily download at least the map for a town and its suburbs. The larger the region the better. (The snippets you can download on Google Maps are several orders of magnitude too small.) Check.

  See screen shot from my phone, where I can download a large portion on Virginia. This is easily enough to download a town and its suburbs. As an added bonus, you can also change the download location to an SD card if your phone has one.

  

• The application must be suitable for navigating based on the downloaded maps. For example, given a street address, I must be able to search this address on the map. Check

• The application must be able to show the GPS position on the map (“where am I?”). Check
• Show transportation information (“where's does bus 42 stop?”). I don't have personal experience with this. But thanks @Gilles Transport information is limited (you get to see the stops but not the lines)

Answer 10

For people who are into hiking, I can recommend the Mapy.cz app. It meets all the Absolute requirements* and provides (offline option included) 'Cycling and hiking maps of the world with marked trails and cycleways'.

*Edit: As for public transport, stops are shown, but generally not the serving lines (except for some cities, where lines are included)