🔍 Click to Enlarge — Yahoo!, meanwhile, shows 83 city labels—just three fewer than Google.

As you can see from the maps above, there’s not really an appreciable difference between the number of city labels on any of these sites. If Google’s superior label readability isn’t on account of it having fewer labels than the other sites, then what other reasons can account for it?

THE 3 UNIQUE EFFECTS THAT GOOGLE APPLIES TO THE TEXT OF ITS CITY LABELS

I’ve found that there are three unique effects that Google applies to the text of its city labels, and that these three effects seem to greatly enhance their readability:



1. White Outlines (that Completely Obscure all Background Data)

I can see you thinking it now: “Wait”, you say, “Doesn’t Yahoo! Maps also have white outlines around the text of its city labels?” It certainly does—but there’s a key difference: the white outlines of Google’s city labels are thicker, and you can’t see the maps’ background details (roads, rivers, etc.) behind them.

Look here at Google’s label for New York. Notice how you can’t see any roads or any other map details behind the “N”, the “e”, or any of the other letters: