Fellow foreigners who take the subway in China, please check out Explore Metro. Explore Metro provides an interactive map of subways in major cities of China. To date, they have maps for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. They also have maps for city/countries not in China like Taipei, Singapore and Seoul.
After playing around with this website, I can say that this is by far the best interactive subway resource I’ve used because of its clean presentation and detailed station information. Whereas other websites provide very rudimentary and sometimes outdated information, Explore Metro seems have the most current information on the many different stations of a metro system. Simply click on the station you are closest to and the the station you want to get to and Explore instantly calculates the estimated time of arrival the how much it costs to get there. While I live in Beijing and every subway ride costs 2 RMB flat, this is very helpful for people living in Shanghai and Guangzhou where the rates depend on distance traveled. Other useful features are the time tables for the first and last trains of each station so you can plan when exactly to catch the last train ride home.
The mobile app is even more useful for people who are on the go and want to know some quick subway info. If you don’t know where you are, the GPS feature locates the station closest to you and how far away you are from it. The app is available on iPhone, iPad and Android. You’ll have to download the app specific to the city you’re in though.
Whether you use the website or the mobile app or both, Explore Metro will surely help you plan your subway trips around China better. For more information, please check them out at:
http://www.explorebj.com/subway/ (specific to Beijing)
Koombah 