When I see that the co-ords of nearly every ATM, Hole in the Wall bar, 7/11, Banks and on and on and on are shown on GPS maps..I cannot stop wondering how it is done.

Even overgrown tracks in the boonies are there.

Can anyone please enlighten me.

Thank You

I suspect that they might be using Google Earth which can be set to give co ordinates for the cursor position at the bottom of the page. I use this quite often when I need to locate a position which does not have a street address or a postcode and have found it to be both extremely useful and accurate.
Google Earth can be set in the options folder to give the co ordinate readout in deg,mins and secs or degrees and points of a degree, either of which can be easily entered into a GPSsuch as Garmin, TOM TOM etc
Hope this helps

There was actually a car driving slowly round Pattaya this week with a sign in the back saying GPRS survey!

Not sure though but I think you confuse a GPS with GPRS which is not the same - have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service for an explanation on GPRS.

I expected someone to mention Google Earth, but there is NO WAY that it can pick up the NAMES of the myriad places.

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This is a view at maximum detail, not much use at this zoom level, but gives an idea.

This is how Navteq is doing it (Article and Video)...

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/making-navteq-maps-a1038.php

Nowadays they use a car packed with GPS, computers, cameras and other stuff, but just 5 years ago it was only a laptop and a GPS receiver.

OpenStreetMaps suggest several (less cost intensive) mapping techniques for volunteers working on their maps

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapping_techniques

welo

Perhaps a survey to see who is sick of GPRS and waiting fro 3G?