System Design: Google Maps

What is Google Maps?

Let’s introduce the problem by assuming that we want to travel from one place to another. Here are the possible things that we might want to know:

• What are the best possible paths that take us to our destination, depending on the vehicle type we’re using?
• How long in miles is each path?
• How much time does each path take to get us to our destination?

A maps application (like Google Maps or Apple Maps) enables users to answer all of the above questions easily. The following illustration shows the paths calculated by Google maps from “Los Angeles, USA” to “New York City, USA.”