> Mapcodes can be easily translated between several different alphabets. The default system is based on the roman alphabet. Mapcodes in other alphabets are generated by character substitution.
And it's not based on representation of lat/lng, which is why it's more of an improvement:
> As explained in the previous section, by reserving short codes for the most densely populated areas, mapcodes for addresses (i.e. places that people need to visit) are on average as short as theoretically possible, within the limits we set for ourselves. One such limit is to use only rectangular areas in our definitions. Another is to limit the size of the “context” data table to about 16,000 records. Probably the most relevant design choice was the choice of character set. For example, had we allowed both capital and lowercase letters, 3 times as many people could have 5-letter codes instead of 6-letter codes.
> The mapcode system allows about 100 km2 of a territory to be covered by 4-letter mapcodes. These are usually reserved for the capital city. About 6,000 km2 can be covered by 5-letter mapcodes . Roughly 250,000 km2 can be covered by 6-letter mapcodes. If a territory is larger than that, the remainder requires 7 letters. A few territories on Earth (notably, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia and the USA) are large enough to merit 8 letters, but these actually consist of sub-contexts, i.e. people there live in a state, republic or oblast much like people elsewhere live in a country. Within such a sub-context, mapcodes are shorter.
