Google Maps API with UK data

While working on a real estate CMS, I realized that Google Maps API is having some legal issues in providing geocode data for UK, Japan or China. The call to API is failed with code 603 (G_GEO_UNAVAILABLE_ADDRESS) indicating that legal or contractual reasons prevent Google from returning the information. At first, I realized that we might have to drop the idea of Google Maps, but after a quick test with Yahoo Maps, i found Yahoo to be working fine with UK.

I never wanted to use Yahoo Maps, so i come up with this solution:

In order to run Google Maps for UK, you have to extract geocodes using Yahoo API, and then pass same geocodes to Google Maps.

Here’s the Yahoo URL which return the geocode:

http://api.local.yahoo.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=[your_app_id]&location=6%20Salisbury%20Square,%20LONDON

Just call Yahoo API for the data at place where you’re requesting google.com, and pass on the geocodes to GoogleMap. And you’re done !!

I found out a lot of people asking about this, so I decided to write a small post here, if anything needed in details, please post your comments.