My ongoing Developer.com series covering the Google Maps API (tutorial 1, tutorial 2, tutorial 3, tutorial 4) shows you how to use this great service to build interesting and useful spatial Web applications. Yet one of the glaring omissions from the API has been the ability to map locations without the use of third-party solutions for converting mailing addresses to their corresponding coordinates; just as is the case with the Yahoo! and Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping APIs, locations can only be pinpointed using their latitudinal and longitudinal descriptors. Whereas the latter two solutions have offered built-in conversion capabilities for some time, Google Maps API users have had to rely on services such as geocoder.us or the US Census Bureau TIGER/Line data for such tasks.
This longstanding feature request was satisfied on June 11 when Google quietly added geocoding capabilities to the API. What’s more, this feature isn’t limited to the U.S.; street-level geocoding is also offered for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain! While limited to 50,000 daily requests, it’s fair to say such constraints won’t affect most users, particularly if caching is implemented. This tutorial shows you how to use this new feature, further streamlining your use of this wonderful API.
