Company Overview

A site for travelers, business people, and the directionally impaired, MapQuest was started in 1967 as the cartography department of commercial printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons. More than 30 years later, it provides products and services via the Web, voice, and wireless devices to help people get where they want to go. The company, formerly GeoSystems Global Corporation, also supplies digital maps for textbooks, computer applications for information kiosks, and online, interactive maps and driving directions for consumers. It’s also a leading publisher of mapping content, including atlases and laminated street maps. In 1999, the company had a successful IPO. The following year it was purchased by AOL, and is now part of the Time Warner conglomerate. MapQuest also maintains sites focused on global content for British, French, Canadian, and German audiences. Users can now obtain driving directions in nine languages.