How to Use AMAP (GaoDe) for Navigation and Taxis as an English Speaker

Last Updated: August 2026

Short answer: AMAP (also called GaoDe Maps) is one of the most useful everyday navigation apps in mainland China. It is especially good for finding the right building entrance, subway exit, walking route and local address. For rides, treat it as one option rather than your only plan: set up a working payment method before you need a car, and keep DiDi or an official metered taxi as a backup.

For first-time visitors, the important skill is not memorising the interface. It is saving the Chinese names and addresses of your hotel, stations and places you plan to visit. Those details make map searches and taxi pickups much more reliable than English-only searches.

What AMAP is good for

AMAP is built for getting around mainland Chinese cities. It can help with walking, driving, public transport, station exits and detailed points of interest. In many places, its local road updates and address data are more practical than Google Maps, which can be incomplete or unreliable in mainland China. See our guide to why Google Maps often fails in China and what to use instead.

Language availability, ride options and payment screens can vary by app version, phone region and city. If an English setting is offered in your version, use it for navigation, but expect some local business names, driver messages and ride-hailing screens to remain in Chinese.

Set it up before you need it

1. Install AMAP before your trip, then allow location access when you first open it.
2. Save your hotel name and full address in both English and Chinese. Ask your hotel for the Chinese version if it is not shown in your booking confirmation.
3. Search for a few places while you have reliable Wi-Fi: your hotel, the nearest metro station, your arrival airport or railway station, and a nearby landmark.
4. Prepare a payment backup before requesting your first ride. For many visitors, this means setting up Alipay with an eligible international card; read our foreign-card payment guide first.

Search in Chinese whenever accuracy matters

Major attractions usually appear when you type their English names. Smaller restaurants, hotels, apartment buildings and station entrances are different: English searches may return a similarly named place, a broad district result or nothing useful at all.

• Copy and paste the Chinese name of your destination into the search bar.
• Open the result details and check the district, address and map pin before leaving.
• For large railway stations, airports and malls, confirm the specific entrance, exit or drop-off level instead of navigating only to the main name.

This small habit prevents a surprisingly common problem: arriving at the correct complex but on the wrong side of a huge road, rail station or shopping centre.

Use it for metro, walking and transfers

For city travel, compare walking and public-transport options before you leave your hotel. Give yourself extra time at very large intersections and interchanges. If you use Alipay for transit, our metro QR-code guide explains how to activate city transport codes in more than 30 cities.

Always open the full route details when travelling late. Last-train times and transfer windows matter more than the headline journey estimate, especially after a concert, night market or delayed high-speed train.

Booking a taxi or ride: practical rules

Ride-hailing availability changes by city, provider and account. Before confirming a car, check the pickup point carefully. At airports and high-speed railway stations, the default pin may be in a designated pickup garage or a level away from the terminal doors. Move the pin only if the app clearly allows it, then follow the signs for the pickup zone.

• Save the car plate number and vehicle description after a ride is accepted.
• Keep your destination open on the map; a screenshot with the Chinese address is useful if you must communicate with a driver in person.
• If you cannot complete a ride request, try the DiDi option inside Alipay, the standalone DiDi app where available, or the official taxi queue.
• For a hotel pickup, use the hotel entrance rather than only the hotel name. This guide covers setting a clear hotel pickup point when you do not speak Chinese.

Do not accept unsolicited rides inside airport or station arrival halls. Follow the physical official taxi signs if you need a fallback; our guide to official metered taxis and avoiding overcharges explains what to look for.

Payment and connectivity backups

Do not wait until you are standing outside a station with luggage to discover that a payment method or verification step needs attention. Set up your preferred payment route before travel and carry enough cash for a short taxi ride as a practical backup. Card acceptance and ride-hailing payment flows can vary, so no single method is guaranteed everywhere.

Navigation can still be useful with weak signal if you have saved your addresses and screenshots, but live route updates and ride booking require a connection. Plan your data setup early, particularly because foreign map and messaging services may behave differently in mainland China.

Quick checklist

• Save hotel, station and destination names in Chinese.
• Check the exact entrance or exit, not just the landmark.
• Set up Alipay or another supported payment method before your first ride.
• Keep DiDi and the official taxi queue as fallbacks.
• Screenshot the destination and your hotel address before travelling through weak-signal areas.

Used this way, AMAP becomes less about reading every Chinese label and more about having the right location details ready at the moment you need them.