Maps and Navigation

Maps and navigation are extremely important while traveling around Kyrgyzstan. Many places do not have tourist and road signs, mountain paths can lead an inexperienced tourist away from civilization, which can be fraught with different problems. Another issue is that a few cartographic services have current and accurate information about Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, when planning a trip to Kyrgyzstan, find out which maps are best to use.

Maps of roads, cities and tourist attractions

Electronic maps

Google Maps

Familiar to all the cards from Google. Are able to lay routes, the information is reliable enough, although the accuracy leaves much to be desired. There is an opportunity to view the roads live, in Google Street View mode, as well as an excellent layer of satellite imagery.

OpenStreetMaps

OpenStreetMap is a service where the community of users supports and updates maps, and therefore OSM has a high level of accuracy of cartographic information, much larger than for example from Google. It is OSM cars that are used on the pages of our site for mountain attractions.
A distinctive feature of OSM is a large number of different layers (road map, bike map, topographic, etc.), among which any traveler will find exactly what you need.

Electronic navigators for smartphones

Google Maps (Android, iOS)

The most accessible and sufficiently detailed navigator is the Google cartographic service. Its distinctive feature is the prevalence, sufficiently high accuracy, a large number of named objects and a good layer of satellite imagery. The application can route routes for different modes of transport and is well suited for traveling through cities, roads and relatively easily accessible sights.
A significant disadvantage of Google Maps is poor performance without an Internet connection. In Kyrgyzstan, you can not always find a stable Internet, and therefore use this application will not always work. It is also worth noting that the quality of roads and trails in the mountainous regions of Kyrgyzstan leaves much to be desired.
Too.kg made a special tourist map of the sights of Kyrgyzstan, which you can save to your phone and use without even connecting to the Internet.
Read more about the map and save it to yourself on the phone at this link: https://too.kg/karta/

OsmAnd (Android, iOS)

The navigation program OsmAnd uses OpenStreetMaps maps, and therefore differs quite a lot of information accuracy. Also, the undeniable advantage of OsmAnd is the ability to work without an Internet connection, provided that you have previously downloaded the cache maps for your chosen country or location. There is a possibility of routing routes for different types of transport.
This navigator is well suited for traveling on cities and roads, as well as for mountainous terrain.

MAPS.ME (Android, iOS)

A simple navigator that uses OSM cards, with the ability to work offline. A fairly good database with roads, attractions and tourist infrastructure.

Paper maps (cards for printing or use on the phone)

Political map of Kyrgyzstan

Maps for highlands

The vast territories of the mountains of Kyrgyzstan are still poorly represented on maps, because of their inaccessibility, and therefore for a mountain trip across the Tien Shan or the Pamir there will be quite a small number of mapping services and navigators listed below.

Electronic maps

OpenStreetMaps

Of all the abundance of electronic map services, to date only OSM provides reliable and up-to-date information on roads in the mountainous regions of Kyrgyzstan.
For the convenience of the route, there are many layers, on which there is all the information the tourist needs for routing the routes.

Too.kg recommends the use of the following layers:
Topographic layer for OSM OpenTopoMap: https://opentopomap.org/
Service for routing mountain routes on OSM: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/

Google Earth

An electronic Google Earth map can be useful for mountain trips in order to assess the quality of roads and the terrain in real pictures.

Nakarte.tk

Excellent service with