How to get Google Maps API to set the correct zoom level for a country?

Question

Is there a was of automatically setting the zoom level based on the size of the country that the map has been centered on?

maps.google.com does exactly what I need, so, for example, if I search for Russia I get a zoom level such that Russia just fits on screen, and when I search for Cuba I get a higher zoom level so that Cuba just fits.

Is there some way of giving the Maps Api a country location and getting an appropriate zoom level.

If not, I guess that I would have to manually (ugh!) create my own table for this information. Or is this information freely available somewhere?

Answer 1

For V3 this code worked for me:

var geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder();    geocoder.geocode( { 'address': address}, function(results, status) {       if (status == google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {         map.setCenter(results[0].geometry.location);         map.fitBounds(results[0].geometry.viewport);       }     }); 

Answer 2

For API v3 check this answer.

You can use the Google Maps Client-side Geocoder to get the bounding box of the country, as in the following example:

// API version 2 var geocoder = new GClientGeocoder();  geocoder.getLocations("Russia", function (locations) {       var north = locations.Placemark[0].ExtendedData.LatLonBox.north;     var south = locations.Placemark[0].ExtendedData.LatLonBox.south;     var east  = locations.Placemark[0].ExtendedData.LatLonBox.east;     var west  = locations.Placemark[0].ExtendedData.LatLonBox.west;      var bounds = new GLatLngBounds(new GLatLng(south, west),                                     new GLatLng(north, east));      map.setCenter(bounds.getCenter(), map.getBoundsZoomLevel(bounds)); });  // API version 3 // ... set north, south, east and west ... var bounds = new google.maps.LatLngBounds(new google.maps.LatLng(south, west),                                            new google.maps.LatLng(north, east)); map.fitBounds(bounds); 

The screenshots below show the results of the above technique when searching for Russia and Cuba: