CS2020: Web Science, Sytems and Design

Google Maps: Language Localization

The idea here is to cutomize to language

The Google Maps API uses the browser's preferred language setting when displaying textual information such as the names for controls, copyright notices, driving directions and labels on maps. In most cases, this is preferable; you usually do not wish to override the user's preferred language setting. However, if you wish to change the Maps API to ignore the browser's language setting and force it to display information in a particular language, you can add an optional language parameter to the <script> tag when including the Maps API javascript code, specifying the language to use.

For example, to display a Maps API application in Japanese, add &language=ja to the <script> tag as shown below:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false&language=ja">

Note: loading the API in the manner shown above will use the Japanese language for all users regardless of user preferences. Be sure you wish this behavior before setting this option.

View example (map-language.html)

The Maps Javascript API also supports Bi-directional (Bidi) text containing characters in both Left-to-Right (LTR) and Right-to-Left (RTL) languages natively. Examples of RTL languages include Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi. Generally, you should specify RTL language pages to render properly by adding dir='rtl' to the page's <html> element. The following example renders a map of Cairo, Egypt using Arabic controls:

View example (map-rtl.html)

See also the supported list of languages. Note that we often update supported languages so this list may not be exhaustive.