Google Adds 20 Museums To Indoor Google Maps, Says More On The Way

Following the debut of indoor maps in Google Maps back in November, Google announced today that it’s adding the indoor maps for twenty U.S. museums to its Maps app on Android. The museums added include the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cincinnati Museum Center, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and 17 Smithsonian museums, the company says, as well as the Smithsonian National Zoo.

The museums now join Google’s collection of over 10,000 indoor maps it has added to its database since the launch in November. At that time, the app included the maps for several major airports as well as some big name retailers, like IKEA. Since then, Google has been steadily improving the product. In April, Google rolled out an Android app for businesses that allows them to provide feedback about how accurate Google’s predications are for the indoor venues. And in May, Google released an even bigger upgrade which introduced indoor walking directions, business photos and even Google Offers integration.

Today’s release may only include a subset of the nations museums, but Google says more are on the way. Specifically, it lists the following as coming soon: SFMOMA, The Phillips Collection, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Other museums can choose to take matters into their own hands and use the Google Maps Floor Plans tool to upload their own indoor maps for inclusion.

This isn’t the first time Google has worked with museums – the company’s efforts with Google Art Project allow visitors to virtually explore art from museums around the world through high-res photos.

This feature is currently available in the Google Maps app on Android phones and tablets. To access it, just launch the app and zoom in on the museum.