Patent ID: 7457704

Claim:
A vehicle navigation apparatus comprising: a display device; a current position detecting unit that detects a current position of a vehicle that has the vehicle navigation apparatus; a storage unit that stores map data of surrounding areas of exits from a travel route of the vehicle and information on the exits of the travel route; a control circuit, wherein the control circuit obtains, from the storage unit, information regarding an upcoming exit among the exits of the travel route on the basis of the current position detected by the current position detecting unit, wherein the control circuit displays the information thus obtained on the display device; and displays a surrounding area map of an area around the upcoming exit and determines a display scale of the surrounding area map such that a predetermined number of facilities is included in the surrounding area map; and an instruction operating unit through which a user of the vehicle navigation apparatus instructs displaying of the surrounding-area map, wherein: the control circuit displays the surrounding-area map on the display device according to the display scale in such a manner that the upcoming exit is located substantially at the center of the display device when the surrounding-area map is instructed to be displayed by the instruction operating unit; and when the upcoming exit includes a plurality of exit points, the control circuit displays the surrounding-area map in such a manner that the center-of-gravity position of the plurality of exit points is located substantially at the center of the surrounding-area map displayed on the display device.