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So far we’ve talked about purely visual Maps APIs — the Javascript API and the Static API.

The Google Maps Platform suite offers two more incredibly useful APIs:

• the Geocoding Service & API
• and the Places Autocomplete & API.

The scopes of these two APIs overlap heavily so in this chapter, you will learn how to distinguish between them, how to use them in conjunction, and when to deploy each independently.

First off, let’s clarify some terminology.

The Geocoding API

Geocoding is the process of turning an address into coordinates (latitude & longitude.)

Generally speaking, you’d use the Geocoding API to transform:

• unambiguous postal addresses
• as well as incomplete, poorly formatted, or misspelled addresses

into full, properly formatted addresses with latitude & longitude and clearly separated address components — street name & house number, district, postal code, administrative area, country name, and the 2-letter country ISO code.

• For instance, given the query Cobrugurgbastei 1 (purposefully misspelled "Coburgbastei", a street in Vienna, Austria), the Geocoding API will respond with the formatted address Coburgbastei 1, 1010 Wien, Austria and the individual address components:

Client-side