An online navigation map in 20 languages containing detailed information of Olympic venues nationwide became accessible as Beijing 2008 Olympic Games opened.

The online public site, www.tomap.cn, mapped the 39 Olympic venues and Olympic parks in Beijing and all co-host cities in China, with information of adjacent parking places, bus stops and subway stations.

In detailed venue maps, it marked out with color blocks and clear icons the places of entrance, exit, toilets, emergency center, shops and where drinking water is available. Even the seat numbers are labeled.

Name of all Olympic venues are put in a scrolling list on the homepage of the website, and one can also look for the name of the venue in an incorporated search engine.

The site is navigated by 20 languages, including Chinese, English, French, Russian, German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Iranian, Greek, Malay and Swedish. Each map was marked out in English and Chinese with simple illustrations.

The website construction and the translation were all worked out by dozens of volunteers in Shanghai. A mosque staff in Pudong district of the city provided the Arabic translation, and a Malaysian volunteer mobilized his family to prepare the Malay and Indonesian navigations. Many college students and community people also took part in building the online map.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)