London is one of the most mapped cities in the world. For centuries, cartographers have crafted different styles of map that make it easier for travellers to get around and for planners to better understand the land around them.
Some maps have been designed for purely utilitarian purposes, while others have a more artistic purpose. For example “London Town” by Fuller, an artist from the UK, took 10 years to create by hand.
Of course, masterpieces like this are great for looking at the British capital from a different perspective. However, they’re not overly practical at getting you from A to B.
In the past, there were two main tools for helping you to navigate London’s roads and public transport networks: the Transport for London Tube Map and the Collins A-Z Atlas.
Today, though, the way that we get around the city has changed significantly. A recent survey found that around a third of the population cycles every month, and this is a trend that has been going up and up in recent years. Around six times as many journeys by bike are made in the capital today compared to the late 1970s.
So as our travel habits and choices have changed, the tools we use to get around have evolved to keep up. But which navigation tool is the best?
The Tube Map
There have been maps of the London Underground network since 1907 when the Evening News commissioned a pocket map that used colours to designate each line. However, it looked a lot different to the one we are familiar with today.
The Tube Map has been produced in its current form since 1931. It was designed by Harry Beck as a schematic more akin to how an electrician would lay out a wiring diagram than a traditional to-scale map. It doesn’t show stations in relation to geographic landmarks, instead focusing on the topology of the route.
Transport for London still produces a paper pocket map for travellers to carry with them, but it’s also possible to download a digital copy for your smartphone or tablet.
The map is great if you know which station you need to get to, but isn’t overly useful if all you know is the landmark or building you want to visit, or if you want to use a mode of transport that isn’t on rails.
Google Maps
Google Maps is a great all-round tool for navigating in London, the rest of the UK, and many other parts of the world. It uses data from several sources, including crowdsourced traffic stats and feeds from highway management agencies.
It can help you get from just about anywhere to almost any other point in the city, via walking, driving, cycling, and transit routes.
Using its traffic data Route4Me, Google Maps can help navigate you away from tailbacks and accidents that’ll slow your progress across London.
Unlike the Tube Map, it can help with finding the best route and travel type to get to a particular site rather than just the nearest Underground, Overground, or DLR station.
Citymapper
Citymapper takes the features of Google Maps and supercharges them. London was the first city which the app was launched in, but it’s now available in dozens of major cities across the globe.
Like Google Maps, it takes publicly available data and interprets it in a way that is useful for you.
Just tell it where you want to go and it will calculate which method of transit is best, how to get to the stop/stand/station, when the next bus or train will arrive, and then it will alert you when it’s time to get off.
Using London-specific data, Citymapper can give you an accurate price that you’ll pay for your bus or train journey and a comparison against a taxi or ride-sharing service. Not only that, but it can advise which part of the train you should get on so that you can perform a speedy exit at your destination, meaning no more traipsing along the entire length of the platform to leave the station.
Citymapper is one of the best tools for getting across London by public transport and bicycle, though if you’re going to be in your car, then Google Maps may be a better choice.