What are the basemaps?

Garmin mapping units come with built-in, factory installed, permanent basemaps that cannot be altered. These basemaps come in a variety of global designations (i.e. Americas Recreational Basemap, Atlantic Recreational Basemap, Pacific Recreational Basemap, Americas Autoroute Basemap, Atlantic Autoroute Basemap, Americas Highway Basemap, Atlantic Highway Basemap and Pacific Highway Basemap).

There are only three versions of units shipped from the factories in Taiwan to Garmins three main distribution points. “Americas Version” (USA), “Atlantic Version” (Europe) and “Pacific Version” (Australia).

The basemaps are installed at factory level in batches according to shipping destinations.

Americas Version: For units to be sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America - Americas Recreational, Americas Autoroute or Americas Highway Basemaps are installed depending on the unit.

Atlantic Version: For units to be sold in Europe, extreme western Russia, Africa, and the Middle East - Atlantic Recreational, Atlantic Autoroute or Atlantic Highway Basemaps are installed depending on the unit.

Pacific Version: For units to be sold in Asia, Australia, and Oceania - Pacific Recreational or Pacific Highway Basemaps are installed depending on the unit.

South Africa falls under the “Atlantic Version” (Europe) and, because of this, most of the units coming into this country come via Europe. (this also explains why some Auto-Routing mapping units have Europe City Select routable map software as well as South African routable map software included as standard in the package). Sometimes however, due to stock shortages at factory level of a particular version (and the backorders piling up), administration bungles at Garmin or even due to a few small shipments being imported outside of the normal channels directly from the USA, we find ourselves with an “Americas Version” of the unit. This is really no big deal as explained below.

South African coverage on the basemaps?

South Africa (not being a major market for Garmin) is not very well represented on any of the basemaps, with coverage being extremely limited on the Atlantic Recreational Basemap. Very few of the hundreds of smaller towns and roads in SA are shown on any of the basemaps and exit data for major freeways and main roads are restricted to Europe only.

Basemap Accuracy?

Another issue we face is the accuracy of the basemaps. Most South African GPS users report basemap errors of between 300m - 500m with frequent occurrences of errors up to a couple of kilometres. This is obviously not as big an issue on a country road (with nothing else on the map for miles around) as it is in a city or town where roads (and turnoffs, intersections & features) are often within 50 – 100m of each other.

What maps do South Africans use then?

Due to the limited coverage of the South African portion of the factory installed basemaps as well as the accuracy (or lack thereof) issues almost all GPS users in South African rely instead on the relevant South African Map Software Packages available for their units (i.e. Garmap SA Streetmaps) and most people have never used or even seen the basemap at all.

If you, like most users, need something more than an extremely rudimentary & basic basemap we would advise that you rather purchase a South African Map Software Package (if it isn’t already included in the package) for use on your GPS unit – it also makes no sense to be spending a lot of money on a map enabled or even an auto-routing unit if you are going to use substandard basemaps.

If however, a basemap is all you will be using or if it is critical to your needs, please ask your local dealer when purchasing a Garmin mapping unit to ensure that you are purchasing one with a basemap that’s appropriate for your location and needs. Factory installed basemaps cannot be altered.