IssueTracker

Is the current work around for developers trying to do this to use GPolygon, and
specify the points of the country (or other politcal boundary)?

William - Yes. There's public data available for many places. I personally use MyMaps
to draw simplified borders and then convert the KML output to JS GPolygon statements.

I read somewhere (on usenet, sorry no url to hand) that the gpolygon approach could
run pretty slowly. I'm wondering how well it would work if I wanted to show a full
world map with countries on it. The commenter on usenet suggested that the best
approach from a performance PoV would be to use multiple image overlays for the
countries from a map server.

I'm not particularly bothered about very precise shapes as I'd probably want the map
to have a fixed viewport, but would need to have good control over the colours of the
shapes (e.g. hex values)

I can see some potential problems with finding a "definitive" list of countries
(perhaps there's an ISO list to use), but nothing insurmountable.

This would be nice! Google has the data for use in Google Earth, but perhaps it
can't give it away to us too?

It would be nice to be able to use such maps as clickmaps: click on blue-colored Alabama, say, and be taken to
wherever I have it linked.

Yes, I for one would love to have access to the hierarchical data that Google uses
internally for geocoding or otherwise: world / country / state / ... and including
the borders of whatever entity we're looking at (e.g. country, region, county,
town...).

Exposing this data through an API would be a major improvement as far as I am
concerned. For accuracy's sake it would be important to know when the data was
verified to be correct and from which source (where possible).

A second (huge) step would be to offer an advanced version of this API by specifying
a date parameter where the country's boundaries would be given for that date
(supposing we're querying for a country). Of course historical data may be incomplete
and there needs to be a mechanism to point out the known limits of the dataset. This
would allow for building a gradually more comprehensive dataset without the
unrealistic expectation of it being 100% complete from day 1, or any time thereafter.

To mitigate potential conflicts, the dataset could include factual data showing which
states officially recognise which borders and which states (or towns where town
boundaries are concerned...) refute given border claims from other states as far as
known to dataset experts at a given point in time.

Changing status of "Accepted" issues to "Acknowledged", to clarify their
state.

We may not be able to resolve all bugs or fulfill all feature requests, but
we do thank you for filing them, and we will continually revisit all
acknowledged issues and evaluate their feasibility. Thanks!

Adding my vote. Adding our own polygons also means multiple polygons for countries
comprised of multiple land parts, such as island nations.

Please bring the boundary data available in Google Earth to the Google Maps API.  This
would be extremely helpful when presenting state/country information.

This is a very old request but hopefully still on the drawing board. I think it should just be an extension of the geocoding API to return polygon coords or a google maps polygon object.

This feature should be a part of api. please take it into consideration..

Very very very interesting feature. Hope will be available soon.
Thanks!!

Would be nice, if the geocoding functions could return a polygon, for any element. Now in Google web search if I search for a street's name, sometimes a small map comes up, with the street highlighted.

i would like to use this feature on our site !

nothing new?

I create a javascript function and variable declaration for each state of the union.  HTH.

http://georgetowndctechie.blogspot.com/2012/09/cognos-10-and-google-maps-2-add-state.html 

Hi, i have to represent countries on the map in different colors.

Please add the possibility to set the color and/or outline of each country by his ISO-Code.

Greetings, Christian.

Has there been any progress on this issue?

please make it puplic by an api function. its already in online maps when you search for a postal code, why not in the api? :(

[Comment deleted]

Hi all,
Thanks for requesting this feature but disappointed to see that there hasn't been any update on this in such long time! Anyone working on this? should be simple now that it's already a feature in the maps.google.com.  

You can get the polygons from OpenStreetMap.

Is it possible to display boundaries (city, state, zip, neighborhood, school ...) on a Google map using the Maps API without having to use supplementary data? We would like to use Google's up-to-date boundary data rather than using their existing, manually updated data in order to maximize efficiency and ensure accuracy. A search on maps.google.com results in a polygon outlining the zipcode boundary-- is it possible to achieve the same action and result with Maps API?

We're also in need of neighborhood boundary polygon data. When is Google going to provide it as part of the geocoding API? Any ETA? Please, advise!

Duly Noted! Would be super helpful to have this data available :)

While this doesn't answer everyone's use-cases, you can use the Embed API to embed a map on your page that shows the outline of a single region.

You can see it in action in the Embed wizard here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/embed/start

The embed API is almost usable for this, the problem is when you use it in view mode to show a place then it places a big white infobox on the map which is unnecessary for this usage (showing a city/region highlighted on the map) and cannot be hidden using the API.

Correction: in the previous comment I wanted to say place mode, not view mode. Could you add an option to place mode of the embed API to hide the white infobox, until support for higlighting regions added to the JS api?

Great idea - I think it's different enough from this request that it should live in it's own feature request. Add a new FR for the Embed API here and I'll file it internally: https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/entry?template=Maps%20Embed%20API%20-%20Feature%20Request

OK, here it is: https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=8170

@ developer m...@google.com:
your suggestion looks nice, but it is not usable to display own colors and such. where i would like to use it for, is when i have a database with a certain number connected to each province, postal code region, or city, i would like to display that in a map with different colored poly fill areas. if i search for this:
https://www.google.nl/maps/place/1687+Wognum/@52.6833955,5.0216724,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x47c8ac07758330e9:0x34b695ef00a873fd?hl=nl
this is the area i would like to use as a polygon to do with whatever i want.
Why is it so difficult to just connect the areas you allready have, to this api: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/polygon-arrays

could a google developer please let us know why they dont provide us with this? its allready in maps.google.com for a long time now, only not in the api :(

+1, as an alternative the maps api could have a function which returns polygon data for a named geographical area. This way we could do then drawing of the polygon ourselves and the maps devs should only add this function which returns the polygon data which is already available in the backend.

http://www.29travels.com/map.php has polygons for each country but you need to add the coordinates in a database.  view source code and the kml file to see the coordinates.  agreed that this would be great if added through API.

That are only country's, I need postal codes, city's, provinces, etc

+1 What's the status on this? Will we ever have the ability to have access to say, neighbourhood boundaries and style them (line, fills, etc)? Or maybe have direct access to the polygon boundary data?

Pfff, come onnnn devs... the data is there already, only make it available...

Hi,

We are developers working on Google maps.

We are trying to display multiple locations along with Google maps provided boundaries in a single map. But we are not able to mark multiple locations along with boundaries in a single map search as depicted in the screenshot provided. We are looking for a solutions for the same.

Best regards,
-Perumal

we're all waiting for it  mcorcu...

I don't get it what takes so long when all the data is available already. This is a 7 year old request.

Yep, 7 years... I've abandoned my GMaps project 5 years ago...

BTW, how to stop receiving notifications from this thread? I've unstarred it and turned off all notifications in https://code.google.com/hosting/settings a long ago, but I still keep receiving emails (and that drives me mad sometimes).

there is a google user in charge of this topic, ekelar...@google.com, but i can not see his whole address. but when i open his google code profile, i see he's in an other team also, so i mailed the leader of that google code team, juberti@webrtc.org, if he knows who ekelar...@google.com is and if he could point someone to this topic. that was 7 days ago... hope i will get a reply...
Bart

just got responses from the maps api team on twitter, hope they will look again at this...

‏@VolgensBartjes  16h16 hours ago
@GoogleMapsAPI who's in change of this issue? https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=109&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Introduced%20Fixed%20Summary%20Stars%20ApiType%20Internal … no update to us in 7 years

Google Maps API ‏@GoogleMapsAPI  13h13 hours ago
@VolgensBartjes We've categorized this issue as a "NeatIdea". You can see a full list of our categories here: https://goo.gl/lqaZFA 

@VolgensBartjes  7m7 minutes ago
@GoogleMapsAPI thnx, didn't seen the categories, just looked, its in the top5 starred, and in the discussion we alle think its not that  hard to do, because its allread available in the normal google maps, so the only thing that needs to happen seems to be  the connection to the public api's...

@VolgensBartjes  1m1 minute ago
@GoogleMapsAPI oh, and its also one of the most old ones....

‏@VolgensBartjes  15s15 seconds ago
@GoogleMapsAPI so, maybe the could be a re-evaluating of the issue?

need this information on api

In our application a user needs to choose a place/location based on his autocomplete search. Without visible borders (like the one's on the maps.google.com) it's not clear to the user if he chose the right autocomplete suggestion.

For example: He is looking for "Zurich, Switzerland" (the canton). Because he sees the borders of the city Zurich he knows he selected the "wrong" Zurich and can adjust his search to "Canton of Zurich, Switzerland" and select the correct one.

In short: Please add the feature to show/hide location borders, just like the ones already shown on maps.google.com

Hi everyone, are there any news about the implementation of this feature in the current Google Maps v3 API?

HI All,

just a suggestion.
you can get polygon too from Open Street Maps.
they provide an API called nominatim.

just a sample: http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?format=json&q=Tokyo,%20Chiyoda,%20Tokyo,%20Kanto,%20Japan&polygon=1&limit=2

As its taken so long, its probably not a technical issue, but rather legal. Such an API would be ripe for abuse (using it to download every county in the world or something) - and Google probably dont own all the data be able to make easily available.

Why should it be a legal issue when it could simply work by using the area's name or its ISO code?

e.g.

api.highlight('FR')

or

api.highlight('France')

There is no need to give out the actual polygon data, the area could be highlighted by simply naming it, as it works with regular Google Maps where when you can search for a country or something and then it's highlighted.

@levelha...@gmail.com for some cases that would be enough, but most developers wants the polygon data so you could draw other colors on the map. also not only countrys with their codes are available at google, but also more region specific things, such as postal code areas here in the netherlands:
https://www.google.nl/maps/place/1687+Wognum/@52.6833903,4.9865671,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x47c8ac07758330e9:0x34b695ef00a873fd?hl=nl

The api can support styling too, e.g. passing in colors:

api.highlight('FR', 'red')

And ISO codes also cover subdivisions within countries, AFAIK.

Anyway, let's see some api first, then it can be gradually improved, supporting more styling options. I don't think they'll give out polygon data for legal reasons, so it's much more feasible to request an api which supports addressing named regions.

I agree polygon data would be the best, but if it's not available then the second best things is an api which higlights regions by name or ISO code.

Woud be Nice than to give html colors for the boundary line and color and opacity for the filling. And if they make this, I hope you can just use every search term that's possible in Google too, like postal codes and villages...

This is a good idea. Same would be for cities and streets, and it could also be nice to be able to zoom to all that are marked in such a way (so that all will be shown to the user).

While we still wait for this feature to be implemented, please check out the same issue for static maps. If this feature could also be useful for you in static maps then please star that issue too:

https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=7930&q=apitype%3AStatic%20type%3AEnhancement&sort=-stars&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Summary%20Internal%20Stars

Having been playing with geometries of country/states/cities, I gained a little more insight on this topic and why the API will probably not have it any time soon.

The issue is that the amount of data (to be read as coordinates) involved is, in a lot of cases, simply staggering. Returning the boundaries as a Polygon (or MultiPolygon) would be infeasible. For example the MultiPolygon that defines the geographic boundary for Germany is ~3MB. So, including this into an API response will increase many times over the data transfer and, obviously, time required from the user end. Not to speak about what it will do to the API servers :D

So, if that wouldn't work (and if it was me it wouldn't) the other possible way is to make a separate request to get the boundaries so you can draw your polygons. It wouldn't solve the size and time issue (so your users will still wait for a while to see the boundaries drawn), but it wouldn't slow the geocode, reverse geocode, etc. requests. But in that case, there is no consistent method (at the moment, and as far as I am aware) to clearly specify which boundaries you actually want. For that to work consistently, we would have to be able to clearly address a state or a city by a unique identifier. If that would work with the Places ID, it would solve that, but I found Places ID to be inconsistent for such use cases.

Which leaves, in my opinion, the only option of requesting tiles with the boundaries already drawn. Now, obviously, these are cached and exist somewhere since they are shown on Google Maps. And this could work pretty neatly with viewport biasing. But this would make those boundaries just a picture, so, not interactive, which sort of defeats the purpose in the end, but it would still be nice to be able to get those tiles.

By passing a zoom level it shouldn't be hard to get simplified polygons, here's how it works in PostGIS:

http://www.bostongis.com/postgis_simplify.snippet

yes, as batch... said, i couldn't imagine that when you visit https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Duitsland/@51.0778957,5.9597175,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x479a721ec2b1be6b:0x75e85d6b8e91e55b?hl=nl that he's download 3mb of polygons?

you can also see the polygons change when zooming in and out. so what cipva... discribed, thats not the problem...
Bart

Thank you for all the stars!

We are unlikely to be able to offer feature polygons as JSON files, but we are considering implementing a version of maps.google.com highlight functionality, for example:
https://www.google.pl/maps/place/Munich,+Germany/@48.1548256,11.4017515,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x479e75f9a38c5fd9:0x10cb84a7db1987d!8m2!3d48.1351253!4d11.5819806?hl=en

We would like to get your feedback on how satisfactory would that be and if it would meet your needs to some extent

Please let us know by replying on this issue!

I personally don't need it anymore as i switched from my job, but i think the most important for everyone would be to make your own settings of line color, fill color and opacity, so you can use it to make your own legenda with different colors.

On scenario is when you need to highlight a region programmatically. You send the name of the region to Maps API and the API highlights the region. Proposed solution would work for this.

Another scenario is when the end user has to pick a region. The end user hovers over the map and you programmatically ask Maps API to highlight regions that are states, for example (only state under the mouse is highlighted) . Then the user clicks one state and you can programmatically ask Maps API to highlight counties.
This also needs events.

Have a nice day!

One point, in case not clear would be to highlight multiple areas at once (rather than just one like on Google Maps), ideally upto a few hundred at once. To be able to create a proper intensity map, with say countries, or states highlighted.  

Maybe even a Data Layer feature, kinda like google.maps.Data.Polygon but you load it by giving a name, rather than coordinates. (and hobbled so can't extract the coordinates from it :)

@kaska
For starters this would be great! I never needed the polygon data itself, just the ability to highlight a "place" by its place id or name (exactly as pointed out by your link). Hopefully this feature would make it into both the web and mobile api.

I don't need access to the polygons points.
However, to trigger and style areas in Viewport would be great.
Atm we work with different self-coded overlays which we would be glad to put out on pasture.

I think with the polygon data it will sufficient, with that you can create the layer and style it if you need only visualise it

I'd like to second the point in #87, as that was what I was working on when I started following this. We found a workaround with the polygon data approach, but it required some processing work on our server to run, and it was all in all rather slow. For the purpose of an intensity map I think it'd be far preferable to be able to select regions in the manner you suggest than to provide the JSON, which is already obtainable from the government and such. (That being said, any way to get a two-server system down to one server is good)

I would love to have automatic polygon generation from the Geocoding API. The boundaries would help a lot. This would be very useful to validate some address. I know Google has the Polygons for Cities, States and also Neighborhood (See image attached)

Boa Tarde
A implementação da Polyline referente à fronteira de determinada região seria de grande ajuda principalmente em aplicações de roteirização de entregas, pois nem sempre o lugar mais próximo geograficamente está dentro de uma mesma classificação dentro da regra de negócio da empresa
A questão da validação do endereço também é importante, principalmente quando existe a necessidade de Geocodificação reversa
Outra grande aplicação para a Polyline é determinar quais regiões são vizinhas de forma automática


Daniel Costa - Rio de Janeiro - BR
------------------------------------------------------------------
(translate)
Good afternoon
The implementation of Polyline for the border of a certain region would be of great help mainly in applications of routing of deliveries, because not always the nearest place geographically is within the same classification within the rule of business of the company
The issue of address validation is also important, especially when there is a need for reverse geocoding
Another great application for Polyline is to determine which regions are neighboring automatically

"We are unlikely to be able to offer feature polygons as JSON files" - Could you give an explanation why?

Surely that is kind of obvious? Copyright and licensing - and not making it easy to bulk extract the data.  

I would like to have this feature with possiblity to make my own settings of line color, fill color and opacity, and to highlight multiples country.

The lack of shape data and the inability to have choropleth maps with boundaries which align to Google's underlying baselayer is one of the main reasons I cannot use Google's API.

The only way around this that I can see is to remove ALL Google boundaries in a custom style and replace with OSM boundary data, where it exists.

"Status:NeatIdea"

:)

I think any ability to highlight a geographic idea would be very beneficial to mapping.

Hi. We would like to request the same feature mentioned in this blog. That feature (automatic polygon generation) is already present on the actual Google Maps Website but it is no longer available on the API. Perhaps if it is possible, if we can request Google to add that functionality to their API wherein when we search for a specific location the search engine would automatically zoom in and highlight the location and its boundaries in pink.

Thank you.

hlo sir

i m using google map javascript but when i open my site google map error show like  this   Oops! Something went wrong.
This page didn't load Google Maps correctly. See the JavaScript console for technical details.

plz help me

@95 Wrong place to report this. You need to create a new thread. Not add to this existing one, which requests something completely different.

123123">

We also need something like that - to show multiple areas with boundaries in the same map using google api, by city name or zip code in JSON. Where does this issue stand now?

Would be good to understand if this "NeatIdea" is likely to be advanced... Can someone from the Dev team please respond?

Thanks in advance,
Barry

another request to make this a feature - importing custom geojson can take a painfully long time on a slow connection! especially with large/"high res" polygons. They also dont necessarily match up exactly with google's own.

As the outlines are already provided and styleable, hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to add some styling options to individual countries/areas/borders?

yeah, does the reassigning means there somebody going to work on this?

Is Google implementing this feature?

not yet. I don't know is not yet or it won't.

Hello Devs,

We are looking for the feature where the boundary of the region is highlighted based on the user's location. and this feature we need to show in android gmap device..
.  Is there any update? or else guide us if you have any alternative.
Thanks,

+1 for this feature. For my particular use-case I would like to have the places API return an object containing the coordinates of boundary (this appears to already be in place on maps.google.com). I want to allow users of my application to be able to use these coordinates as a starting point for geofences.

1. Places API returns an object with the coordinates of the place data
2. This would allow users to save these coords as a geofence / polygon

+1 for this feature. As others have stated, the functionality is available in GMaps. Would be great to "enable" city, county or state boundaries and get the polygon coordinates at varying levels of simplification based on the zoom level.

Pardon me to report a new issue here. I can't choose a component in the `create issue` page.

Component: new experimental renderer.
Title: Marker remains on the renderer after setCenter and searching.
Content;

I have a web app that has both locating (by setCenter) and searching (by default behaviour) functionalities. Recently, my teammates keep reporting this wired bug to me that, if they click locate button first and then search a place, those markers won't disappear but keeps rendering in the positions relative to window. Upon this bug happens, dragging or zooming the map has a possibility to recover it.
Sorry, I couldn't provide a runnable example for now.
I tried to lock googlemapapi version to 3.31, this bug disappeared.

Environment:
react@15
react-google-maps@6,7,8
already observed in kubuntu, arch linux and windows 10

I keep getting these Emails from Buanizer-system and Im not quite sure
WHY???? Can someone PLEASE explain why i get these's Emails and what do
they all mean?? Thanks for your time.

On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 11:16 PM <buganizer-system@google.com> wrote:

Dear commenter #108, I keep receiving this freaking emails for about last 4 or 5 (6? - don't remember) years since I abandoned project with google maps and tried to opt-out the first time. I wrote here a few times, but my comments were deleted and nothing happened - I keep receiving this emails. And nobody in Google cares about it. That's what I think is a proper - Google way to handle such inconveniences. So, relax and try not to get it close to your heart ;)

Remove the star to the left of the title to unsubscribe from this issue. If you still have a problem with the emails, then please try to get support somewhere else as that is not related to this particular issue.

> Remove the star to the left of the title to unsubscribe from this issue.

I'd unstarred it years ago. Yesterday I put the star on and then revoked it (to toggle unsubsciption). Now I've just got the new email "Assigned to..". And it's not funny.

> then please try to get support somewhere else

Could you please be more specific or it's just a polite form of GTFOH?

Just create a filter rule in gmail to send mails with this title automatically to trash and then it's a non-issue.

+1 StackOverflow:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49587308/draw-polgon-on-google-maps-for-given-address

10 years & still no alternative to this?

Hey guys, any updates on it? :)

I need it. Hello?

Hello, we are in need of this feature
any timeframe?

Hi,

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?query=bogota&key=AIzaSyCd

With the previous query does not return all the points the geometry that is shown in the query that is done with the one made in the Web

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bogota%C3%A1/@4.6486259,-74.2478956,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8e3f9bfd2da6cb29:0x239d635520a33914!8m2!3d4.7109886!4d -74.072092

We want to know in what service you can get this polygon that is much more detailed

this service complements a lot the functionality of the api

I'd love this feature, there'd be a ton of use cases for it, and based on this thread as well as StackOverflow answers, it's widely anticipated.

I also want this resource in the API

How do I get off this list?

> How do I get off this list?

You can not. You have to wait till they solve this issue. We all got stuck here. We have lost hope years ago. Projects we were working on are long dead ... There is no hope any more.

This is unbelievable. And the original but is over ten years old; how can it possibly still be relevant?

If you un-star (click on the yellow star to make it white) you will no longer receive updates, except now that you have commented you will still receive updates... :(

Also this is still relevant, there are still valid reasons to have a polygon for features, but it's not on our radar at the moment, so keep starring, we keep monitoring, and if the feature requests stops being relevant, please un-star so that we can gauge interest properly.

> How do I get off this list?

> except now that you have commented you will still receive updates... :(

Told ya!

> but it's not on our radar at the moment

How many stars does it need to blip on that radar? Ballpark will do.

CC

Any Idea when this feature will be available

+1

Its 2019 and i am still waiting for this feature. badly need this. Only for this feature may be i have switch to leaflet + osm

any updates?

I  am trying to find out more info on this matter.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:05 PM <buganizer-system@google.com> wrote:

Fun fact that we can colorize the labels in styling wizard but if you try to colorize the geometry, it just does nothing. Wondering if I should open a separate bug for that.

I am having the same issue, unfortunately it took me a lot of research to find out that this feature is not available and all the workarounds are not 100% accurate.

Please everybody, ask you're colleagues who need this, to star this feature request too...

+1

I have a client who needs this.

I need this feature for a client too!!

Thanks for sharing your interest in this Feature Request.

For those users/customers who also wants this Feature request, please star the issue. This will subscribe you to receive technical updates on the issue. Starring the issue also provides us with valuable feedback on the importance of the issue to our customers, and increases the issue's priority with the product engineering team.