“Speak Friend Before You Enter”

Whether you want to:

create interactive maps for your website
integrate maps into a business application
create custom geospatial visualizations
or use Google’s geospatial APIs like address autocomplete, geocoding, directions etc.

you’ll need a Maps Platform account and an API Key.

<aside> 🔑 An API key is an alphanumeric set of characters that always starts with AIza, e.g.:

AIzaAyDWW5Ayx97mgG7ZKuE1-Xn0-dW1EvXpRQ

FYI, API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is a set of protocols that enables communication between different software applications.

In the context of the Google Maps Platform, your API key is the primary form of credential (authentication + authorization) that you’ll use to load the map and/or request other, map-related services from Google.

</aside>

If you already have an API key, you can jump right to Creating a New Google Map.

If you don’t have an API key, continue with Obtaining Your Maps API Key(s).

In this chapter →

Obtaining Your Maps API Key(s)

Creating a New Google Map

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