Introduction

Welcome to Google Maps API Succinctly! In this book, I aim to give you a hands-on, beginner-level introduction to developing mapping applications using the Google Maps JavaScript API.

Unlike with many beginner-level technical books I have written, I can be confident that you know what Google Maps is, and you might even be using it on a daily basis. As well as accessing Google Maps on Google's own site, you will doubtless have also stumbled across other sites that have Google's maps embedded within them. These might have been as simple as a website for a retail business where the purpose of the map is to show the locations of each of their stores, or more sophisticated and useful (?) examples, such as the now-infamous Zombie Outbreak Simulator (see Figure 1).

These embedded maps have all been created using Google's APIs, which provide not only access to Google's extensive map data, but also a simple way of visualizing and otherwise working with that data.

Maps are fun. Putting maps on the web is even more fun. But creating web maps where there is so much freely available and useful data to play with is just awesome. This book will teach you the ins and outs of the Google Maps JavaScript API so that you can harness the power of Google Maps within your own websites and applications.

Like all Succinctly books, this book is light on theory and heavy on the action! To get the most out of it, you’ll need to complete all the coding activities rather than just read about them. All you need—apart from a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and the willingness to follow some simple instructions—is an up-to-date browser (I recommend either Firefox or Chrome) and a text editor.

Tip: If you get stuck, you can download the solution code from GitHub. There, you’ll also find the image files and other resources referred to in this book.

Figure 1: Maps and zombies. What's not to like?