It’s not highlighted that well, but the TfL website has a range of tube maps in languages other than English.
Not many, and not updated that often, but in a city that has so many tourists visiting, it makes sense to offer some level of multi-lingual service.
There’s 15 of them in total, and the language changes are limited to the explanatory text on the maps. Cockfosters is not translated into its Chinese equivalent, so sadly they miss out on its silly name.
Oddly, while the tube line names are unchanged, the dangleway is translated into local languages.
Choose your foreign language tube map below:
- خريطة المترو – Arabic tube map
- উবের মানচিত্র বাংলা – Bengali Tube map
- 地铁线路图 – Chinese Tube map
- Plan du métro – French Tube map
- U-Bahn (Tube) Karte – German Tube map
- Υπόγειος σιδηρόδρομος – Greek Tube map
- ટ䀈?બુ (Tube) નો નક્શો – Gujarati Tube map
- ट्यूब (Tube) का नक्शा – Hindi Tube map
- Mappa della metropolitana – Italian Tube map
- Mapa metra – Polish Tube map
- Mapa do metropolitano – Portuguese Tube map
- Mapa del metro – Spanish Tube map
- லண்டன் சுரங்கப்பாதை வரைபடம் – Tamil Tube map
- Tube (Metro) Haritası – Turkish Tube map
- لندن زیر زمین کا نقشہ – Urdu Tube map
The full list is also here.
Why does the Chinese map call stations in zones 1, 5, 8 & 9 “train stations”, & the rest “station locations”.
1区车站 means “zone 1 train station”.
1区站点 means “zone 1 station location”.
Alternatively you could go for the most elegant approach of 1区站 (“zone 1 station”).