limiting google maps autocomplete to UK address only

Question

I've been looking at the example on:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-autocomplete.html

and have decided to incorporate it into my site.

Is it possible to limit the addresses to UK addresses only?

Answer 1

Try this:

var input = document.getElementById('searchTextField');
var options = {
   types: ['(cities)'],
   componentRestrictions: {country: 'tr'}//Turkey only
};
var autocomplete = new google.maps.places.Autocomplete(input,options);

Answer 2

You can't strictly/hard limit the locations that it finds, although there is a feature request in the system to do so, but you can set a 'bias' on the results. It's passed in as an argument to the autocomplete method as a google maps bounds object. Autocomplete will then favor locations within those boundaries. Note, however, that since this isn't a hard boundary, if there are matches for the search outside the boundaries it will return those.

From my usage it seems a bit buggy and can use some improvement - especially considering that anything outside your boundary is not tagged by proximity at all, so something one block outside the boundary is just as likely to show as something 1000 miles outside, so make sure you play around with getting the boundaries working right.