Google Maps APIs and India

Google Maps, now quite popular with users in India, lets you search for addresses, find businesses, and calculate driving directions. There are many use-cases where you would want to bring the experience of Google Maps combined with the data of a third party website.

Fortunately, we provide various Maps APIs for embedding maps on your website - a JavaScript API, Flash API, and Static API. Using the API, a developer can customize the controls and overlay data on top of the maps using markers, polylines ,polygons or custom tiles using tiles overlay.

The API is free for public facing websites, and there is a paid version available for Intranet, asset tracking, and vehicle tracking scenarios.

We recently released the user-generated content from MapMaker for use in the API, so developers can now specify that they want MapMaker tiles instead of the standard road/hybrid tiles. More information on this feature is available here:
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/introduction.html#MapMakerTypes

We also recently launched driving directions for India, and developers can access that data from the API as well. Here is a sample that displays driving directions for the New Delhi region.

Some usage examples from India:

• Standard Chartered Bank in India uses Google Maps APIs for their ATM locator service.
  http://www.standardchartered.co.in/RichApps/Locator/index.html
  


• Route Guru uses Google Maps APIs and Eicher Data mashup to give landmark based directions in NCR region.
  http://routeguru.com
  

We are excited to see creative uses of the Google Maps API from Indian websites and developers. More information can be found at: http://code.google.com/apis/maps

Rajdeep Dua, Google Developer Relations, India