I chanced upon Yahoo! Maps recently after a long while of not looking at the site.

I’m pretty impressed, all over a single feature that Google Maps doesn’t sport: The inclusion of labels for well-defined urban neighborhoods in New York City. As you can see from the screenshot above, the well-known downtown zones are represented: Nolita, Soho, Flatiron District, Kips Bay, Greenwich/West Village, East Village, and Hudson Square. And it’s pretty consistent throughout the rest of the five boroughs.

That might seem minor, but to me, it’s a much-appreciated extra touch. If I’m looking up an address, it’s nice to be able to situate it further by its surroundings.

It looks like Yahoo! provides the same level of detail for other bigger cities, like Seattle.

For all the efforts Google’s put into building its Maps utility with user-generated enhancements and such, I’m surprised they haven’t taken this extra step. I realize there are plenty of other flexibility options on the Google side that probably make it more robust than Yahoo!, but frankly, that doesn’t count for much with me. I’m thinking I’ll be using Yahoo! Maps for my default mapping resource site from here on out.