Nokia's Here Maps has announced a partnership with Chinese search giant Baidu today in which Maps will power Baidu Maps outside of mainland China, the first region to be covered will be Taiwan.

The announcement came after a few weeks of Baidu searching for a mapping service outside of China. Google Maps was off the cards, due to past relations with the Chinese government, and Here Maps seems like the best option for Baidu.

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This is a good time to invest in a partner outside of China, considering 98 million Chinese nationals travelled overseas in 2014, up 18 percent from last year. Currently, Baidu Maps shows nothing outside mainland China.

Inside China, Baidu Maps is the most popular service and has similar functionality to Google Maps. However, Google uses realistic satellite view while Baidu uses a graphic style. It is unclear if Baidu will work with Nokia Here to offer the same graphics outside of China.

Here Maps is starting to gain a reputation for excellent service, powering Microsoft and Yahoo's mapping services. The mapping service is more reliable than Apple Maps and tends to be a better partner than Google, despite Google investing more into mapping technologies.

Working with Baidu should be a huge opportunity for Nokia, with the potential of hundreds of millions of Chinese tourists checking out the maps when on vacation.

The Finland-based company has started to make profit for the first time in a few years, thanks to Microsoft acquiring the hardware division of Nokia. The new Nokia now offers networking, communications and mapping technologies.

TagsBaidu Maps, Nokia Here, Here Maps, Nokia, location apps