Get Started

  • This guide explains how to prepare your application to work with the Google Maps Places API's Place class.

  • You'll need to set up a Cloud project, obtain an API key, and enable necessary APIs including Maps JavaScript API, Places API, and Places API (New).

  • The Places Library is loaded by including the Maps JavaScript API bootstrap loader and then calling importLibrary("places").

  • Once set up, you can utilize the Place class for searching places, retrieving details, and using Place Autocomplete.
European Economic Area (EEA) developers

This page shows you how to get an API key, enable the required APIs, and load the Places Library, so that you can work with the Place class.

Get an API key and enable the required APIs

Before using the Place class, you need to:

  • Create a Cloud project with a billing account.
  • Get an API key.
  • Enable the following APIs:
    • Maps JavaScript API
    • Places API
    • Places API (New) (required to use Text Search (New) and Place Autocomplete)

To learn more, see Set up your Google Cloud project.

Get an API key

Enable Places API (New)

Load the Places Library

To load the Places Library, first load the Maps JavaScript API, by adding the inline bootstrap loader to your application code, as shown in the following snippet: 

<script>
  (g=>{var h,a,k,p="The Google Maps JavaScript API",c="google",l="importLibrary",q="__ib__",m=document,b=window;b=b[c]||(b[c]={});var d=b.maps||(b.maps={}),r=new Set,e=new URLSearchParams,u=()=>h||(h=new Promise(async(f,n)=>{await (a=m.createElement("script"));e.set("libraries",[...r]+"");for(k in g)e.set(k.replace(/[A-Z]/g,t=>"_"+t[0].toLowerCase()),g[k]);e.set("callback",c+".maps."+q);a.src=`https://maps.${c}apis.com/maps/api/js?`+e;d[q]=f;a.onerror=()=>h=n(Error(p+" could not load."));a.nonce=m.querySelector("script[nonce]")?.nonce||"";m.head.append(a)}));d[l]?console.warn(p+" only loads once. Ignoring:",g):d[l]=(f,...n)=>r.add(f)&&u().then(()=>d[l](f,...n))})({
    key: "YOUR_API_KEY",
    v: "weekly",
    // Use the 'v' parameter to indicate the version to use (weekly, beta, alpha, etc.).
    // Add other bootstrap parameters as needed, using camel case.
  });
</script>

Next, use the await operator to call importLibrary() from within an async function, as shown here:

  const {Place} = await google.maps.importLibrary("places");

Your function can also load libraries without declaring a variable for the needed classes:

  async function initMap() {
    google.maps.importLibrary("places");
    ...
  }

  initMap();

Alternatively, you can load the libraries directly in HTML as shown here:

  <script>
  google.maps.importLibrary("places");
  </script>

For more information about loading libraries, see Load the Maps JavaScript API.

Next steps