Posts tagged Maps from the Hanzi Write Practice team.
When an app maps a place name for you, it learns it, not you. Mapping it yourself, by writing the characters from memory, is what puts the territory in your own head. Here is the difference.
An app won't reliably translate a physical map on the spot, but your local geography is a small fixed set: district, metro stops, streets. Learn those characters and the map stops being foreign.
Drafting ancient-style Chinese maps means writing the formal numerals and directional terms by hand. Here is the bounded set to learn and how to drill it.