Maps Engine API now at v1: Make Maps in Google’s Cloud

Maps are a wonderful tools for visualizing data. With Google Maps Engine, you can create, share, and host maps like these in the Cloud:

National Geographic Society’s

Ocean Atlas: Indian Ocean Floor

David Rumsey Map Collection’s

Japan 1891

City of Edmonton's

Traffic Incidents Bubbles

Last year we started rolling out features to enable full data management in Maps Engine via a REST API and a set of native client libraries (including Java, Python and Node.js), making the API easy to use from any application or platform (Android, web, iOS, and server environments). The API can be used to automate data updates, build custom apps on the Maps Engine platform, or use 3rd party tools to connect existing software with your data stored in Maps Engine.

Today we’re launching the Maps Engine API v1.0: you can now do any CRUD operation on Maps Engine data via the API. The API is fully covered by our service level agreement (SLA) and deprecation policy. There is also a great set of new tutorials and documentation to help get you started.

Take advantage of Maps Engine and its API to:

1. Bring Maps Engine to your own application by connecting with Maps Engine via the API. Great examples of this are Safe Software’s FME tool which allows you to load data from Socrata to Maps Engine and the Open Data Kit Collect app which helps folks collecting data out in the field update straight into Maps Engine,
   
   

2. Make your maps discoverable to the world by joining the Maps Engine public data program and publishing your maps to the public Google Maps Gallery, or
   
   


3. Host and craft your own maps in Maps Engine by signing up for a free account or becoming a Maps for Work customer (for higher data limits and query capacity)
   
   

Keen to get started using the API? Then check out the video below for a crash course in Maps Engine and the API and these tutorials.







Posted by Jen Kovnats, Product Manager