These posts about new categories added to Google Maps, which local guides can use to indicate which type of business a place is, are typically added every few months (my aim is to do them more or less quarterly) and typically then contain 15 or so new categories, as you can e.g. see in the previous ‘category’-post from October 2024 (you can find an overview of all the posts here).
This time, however, I’ve had to wait quite a bit longer to get a number of new categories that justifies creating a post, but still it’s only 7. That, however, does not imply that the Maps team has not been working on the list in the past few months… as there has been a clean up operation, similar to what we have seen in the summer of 2019. And you can definitely call it a thorough spring cleaning: in total 81 categories have been removed!
Let’s first have a look at the newly added ones:
| Categories added |
|---|
| Drinking water supplier |
| Energy advisory service |
| K-12 school |
| Montessori preschool |
| Queer bar |
| Rideshare pickup location |
| Tractor parts store |
With the energy transition happening on a global scale (in some areas unfortunately slower than in other areas) a new category such as Energy advisor service makes perfect sense of course. And the addition of Rideshare pickup location is also a sign of the times obviously.
On the other hand, I don’t really understand why Tractor parts store should be added now - tractors have been around for a while, right? 
Perhaps they now break down easier than they used to (in the good old days when things “were made to last”), increasing the need for stores selling spare parts?
A constant in category changes are types of schools - some of those seem to be added or removed all the time. With so much difference in educational organization across the globe, it is of course not easy to come up with a classification that covers all needs. And in case you were wondering about Queer bar: I guess that is intended for the POIs (Points of interest) where Gay bar or Lesbian bar are not perfectly suited.
Before listing all the removed categories, I should also mention that 2 categories were renamed: Summer Camp is now Summer Camp Organizer (makes sense) and Toll booth is renamed to Toll station (as ‘booth’ suggests a construction where an employee is sitting, whereas an increasing amount of them is now operated without a human on site?)
On to the 81 removed categories then.
| Removed categories |
|---|
| Accounting software company |
| Adventure Sports |
| Animal park |
| BBQ area |
| Biochemical supplier |
| Central authority |
| Chartered surveyor |
| Chicken hatchery |
| Citizens advice bureau |
| City administration |
| City Department of Environment |
| City Department of Public Safety |
| Civil registry |
| Conservation department |
| Conservator supply & installation |
| Conservatory construction contractor |
| Construction and maintenance office |
| Correctional services department |
| Curtain and upholstery cleaner |
| Customs department |
| Department for Regional development |
| Department of City Treasure |
| Department of education |
| Department of finance |
| Department of State Treasure |
| District council |
| Drama theater |
| Driver vehicle licensing agency |
| Emergency management ministry |
| Federal reserve bank |
| Garbage dump service |
| General register office |
| Home hairdresser |
| Iron steel contractor |
| Junk store |
| Legal aid office |
| Mobile hairdresser |
| Municipal corporation |
| Municipal Department Agriculture Development |
| Municipal Department Agriculture Food Supply |
| Municipal department civil defense |
| Municipal department communication |
| Municipal department housing and urban development |
| Municipal department of culture |
| Municipal department of sports |
| Municipal department science technology |
| Municipal department social defense |
| Municipal finance |
| Municipal health department |
| Municipal office education |
| Municipal social development |
| Office of vital records |
| Oil store |
| Oil wholesaler |
| Packaging machinery |
| Photocopiers supplier |
| Printing equipment and supplies |
| Provincial council |
| PVC industry |
| Reclamation center |
| Resident registration office |
| Shinkin bank |
| State department agriculture development |
| State department agriculture food supply |
| State department communication |
| State department finance |
| State department for social development |
| State department housing and urban development |
| State department of agriculture development |
| State department of environment |
| State department of social defense |
| State department of tourism |
| State department of transportation |
| State department science technology |
| State dept of culture |
| State dept of sports |
| Tobacco exporter |
| Tool grinding service |
| Toy and game manufacturer |
| Traditional restaurant |
| Video game rental service |
The most striking feature here seems to be that a lot of categories referring to a specific government office are removed. Which is no problem whatsoever if you ask me: the general category Local government office is still there and the specific department (culture, agriculture, environment, etc) is usually part of the POI name - no info is lost.
Other removals can be considered to be sign of the times as well: perhaps the last few stores labeled Video game rental service as physical locations have gone bankrupt by now?
A removal that definitely caused my eyebrows to raise is Federal reserve bank. Surely there’s still at least one of them? 
The logic here might have been that there are in fact of course still some POIs where it can be applied, but that those are so few that a separate category is no longer justified. After all Bank and Central bank are still there.
With such a huge amount of categories no longer available, at least some of them will be missed by some local guides. Please check the list in detail and let me know in the comments which you will be missing.
One more thing: added or removed categories are always an opportunity to earn some local guide points by making category edits. The new ones are added because there are POIs in need of them - most of those will already be on Maps, but with another (suboptimal) category. And removing a category from the list available for use by local guides does not mean that all POIs where the removed category has been used in the past automatically get assigned another category; and with 81 removals, there’s bound to be thousands of category edits (at 5 points each) just waiting for you to find them.
