The Washington Post wants people to start looking local. The award-winning broadsheet recently launched Local Explorer, a new service on washingtonpost.com, which allows users to get the lowdown on where you live, or where you’re thinking about living.

Local Explorer is a map-based tool designed to explore an area’s communities in granular detail. Established through a partnership with OnBoard, it provides a visual overview the Washington area, plotting current, practical information about communities on Google Maps.

According to the blog Google Maps Mania, Local Explorer covers the Washington, D.C., area, and various Washington, Maryland and Virginia communities. Mashed up on the map are recent area home sales, crime incidents and schools. You can also map fire and police stations, restaurants, bars, hospitals, movie theaters and more. It also has facts and figures, local news, classifieds and upcoming events within a great user interface.

User simply have to key in a city name, street address, county name or Zip code, and such information will be at their fingertips. In addition, they will also receive tailored news reports from their specific community, as well as local classified ads in The Washington Post.

Also launched in tandem with Local Explorer is Local Life, which serves as a centralized location for users to browse useful content relevant to the D.C. area, including traffic alerts, local classifieds, a link to the City Guide and DC Scout (the site’s popular shopping and style guide).

“Washingtonpost.com and The Washington Post have a strong reputation for national and political reporting, but we are also the leader in all things local,” said Executive Editor Jim Brady in a press release. We take pride in being able to offer our readers extensive resources beyond traditional news stories and are committed to providing valuable tools to help our local readers navigate, understand and enjoy the metro area.”

Aside from offering this one-stop online resource to connect people with the communities they live in, washingtonpost.com also unveiled a wireless version of its City Guide for Web-enhanced phones, BlackBerrys and similar devices, allowing users to search for restaurant and bar reviews and movie showtimes.