Nokia Confirms It's Powering Amazon Maps on the Kindle Fire

Nokia has confirmed that it's supplying the mapping data for Amazon's new Maps API. The new API was revealed a short while ago, but Amazon did not say where it gets its map data from. There were some rumors that Nokia was involved, via its Navteq acquisition, prior to the launch of the new Kindle Fires.

"Amazon is licensing the Nokia Location Platform (NLP) for maps and geocoding," Nokia told The Next Web.

"The Nokia Location Platform is the most advanced mobile location platform with a unique global footprint. It provides maps for almost 200 countries (with more than 100 of them navigable)," it added.

Nokia was the likely choice, there aren't that many companies that have access to the amount of data a solid online map needs. Google is the obvious choice, but for also obvious reasons, Amazon couldn't work with Google.

Open Street Maps offers a free and open-source alternative, but a less detailed map in some places. That leaves Nokia which already powers Yahoo Maps, for a while now, and is becoming the source of Bing Maps data as well, at least on mobile devices.