Google is hoping to speed up the crowd-sourcing cartography efforts in India by offering a contest with prizes to the top 1000 Map Makers. The contest spans from February 12th to March 25th with prizes including devices and Google branded merchandise.

Google Map Maker lets people who know the area better supply edits to Google Maps, most noticeably in areas where government supplied data and Google's on mapping efforts have failed, or been blocked. Most recently, Google Map Maker efforts have greatly improved the accuracy of North Korea on Google Maps.

The very top participants in the contest will receive a Samsung Galaxy Note 8000, with Samsung Galaxy S II GT smartphones, gift coupons, T-shirts and certificated will be awarded to lower ranking participants. What do you think about Google Map Maker? Have you used the service to improve your local maps? Let us know in the comments.