Android Google Map set country

Question

I am new in developing with android google play sdk. I want my map have a search function but it only specify on my country. Let just say i live in Singapore, when i search a location, i want my engine only search on my country. How to set it ??

This is my Java Code

public class NearbyActivity extends FragmentActivity {

Button mBtnFind;
GoogleMap mMap;
EditText etPlace;
LatLng myPosition;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.nearby);

    // Getting reference to the find button
    mBtnFind = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btn_show);

    // Getting reference to the SupportMapFragment
    SupportMapFragment mapFragment = (SupportMapFragment)getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentById(R.id.map);

    // Getting reference to the Google Map
    mMap = mapFragment.getMap();

    // Getting reference to EditText
    etPlace = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.et_place);

    // Setting click event listener for the find button
    mBtnFind.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            // Getting the place entered
            String location = etPlace.getText().toString();

            if(location==null || location.equals("")){
                Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), "No Place is entered", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                return;
            }

            String url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?";

            try {
                // encoding special characters like space in the user input place
                location = URLEncoder.encode(location, "utf-8");
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }

            String address = "address=" + location;

            String sensor = "sensor=false";

            // url , from where the geocoding data is fetched
            url = url + address + "&" + sensor;

            // Instantiating DownloadTask to get places from Google Geocoding service
            // in a non-ui thread
            DownloadTask downloadTask = new DownloadTask();

            // Start downloading the geocoding places
            downloadTask.execute(url);
        }
    });
    mMap.setMyLocationEnabled(true);
    mMap.getUiSettings().setCompassEnabled(true);
    mMap.getUiSettings().setMyLocationButtonEnabled(true);
    mMap.getUiSettings().setRotateGesturesEnabled(true);
    LocationManager locationManager = (LocationManager) getSystemService(LOCATION_SERVICE);

    // Creating a criteria object to retrieve provider
    Criteria criteria = new Criteria();

    // Getting the name of the best provider
    String provider = locationManager.getBestProvider(criteria, true);

    // Getting Current Location
    Location location = locationManager.getLastKnownLocation(provider);


    if(location!=null){
        double latitude = location.getLatitude();
        double longitude = location.getLongitude();
        LatLng latLng = new LatLng(latitude, longitude);
        myPosition = new LatLng(latitude, longitude);   
        CameraUpdate center=CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(myPosition);
        CameraUpdate zoom=CameraUpdateFactory.zoomTo(15);
        mMap.moveCamera(center);
        mMap.animateCamera(zoom);
        mMap.addCircle(new CircleOptions()
            .center(myPosition)
            .radius(450)
            .strokeColor(Color.LTGRAY)
            .fillColor(0x2000FFFF));
    }

}

private String downloadUrl(String strUrl) throws IOException{
    String data = "";
    InputStream iStream = null;
    HttpURLConnection urlConnection = null;
    try{
        URL url = new URL(strUrl);
        // Creating an http connection to communicate with url
        urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

        // Connecting to url
        urlConnection.connect();

        // Reading data from url
        iStream = urlConnection.getInputStream();

        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(iStream));

        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

        String line = "";
        while( ( line = br.readLine()) != null){
            sb.append(line);
        }

        data = sb.toString();
        br.close();

    }catch(Exception e){
        Log.d("Exception while downloading url", e.toString());
    }finally{
        iStream.close();
        urlConnection.disconnect();
    }

    return data;
}
/** A class, to download Places from Geocoding webservice */
private class DownloadTask extends AsyncTask<String, Integer, String>{

    String data = null;

    // Invoked by execute() method of this object
    @Override
    protected String doInBackground(String... url) {
        try{
            data = downloadUrl(url[0]);
        }catch(Exception e){
            Log.d("Background Task",e.toString());
        }
        return data;
    }

    // Executed after the complete execution of doInBackground() method
    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String result){

        // Instantiating ParserTask which parses the json data from Geocoding webservice
        // in a non-ui thread
        ParserTask parserTask = new ParserTask();

        // Start parsing the places in JSON format
        // Invokes the "doInBackground()" method of the class ParseTask
        parserTask.execute(result);
    }
}

/** A class to parse the Geocoding Places in non-ui thread */
class ParserTask extends AsyncTask<String, Integer, List<HashMap<String,String>>>{

    JSONObject jObject;

    // Invoked by execute() method of this object
    @Override
    protected List<HashMap<String,String>> doInBackground(String... jsonData) {

        List<HashMap<String, String>> places = null;
        GeocodeJSONParser parser = new GeocodeJSONParser();

        try{
            jObject = new JSONObject(jsonData[0]);

            /** Getting the parsed data as a an ArrayList */
            places = parser.parse(jObject);

        }catch(Exception e){
            Log.d("Exception",e.toString());
        }
        return places;
    }

    // Executed after the complete execution of doInBackground() method
    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(List<HashMap<String,String>> list){

        // Clears all the existing markers
        mMap.clear();

        for(int i=0;i<list.size();i++){

            // Creating a marker
            MarkerOptions markerOptions = new MarkerOptions();

            // Getting a place from the places list
            HashMap<String, String> hmPlace = list.get(i);

            // Getting latitude of the place
            double lat = Double.parseDouble(hmPlace.get("lat"));

            // Getting longitude of the place
            double lng = Double.parseDouble(hmPlace.get("lng"));

            // Getting name
            String name = hmPlace.get("formatted_address");

            LatLng latLng = new LatLng(lat, lng);

            // Setting the position for the marker
            markerOptions.position(latLng);

            // Setting the title for the marker
            markerOptions.title(name);

            // Placing a marker on the touched position
            mMap.addMarker(markerOptions);

            // Locate the first location
            if(i==0)
                mMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(latLng));
        }
    }
}

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }
}

And this is my GEOcodeJSON :

public class GeocodeJSONParser {

/** Receives a JSONObject and returns a list */
public List<HashMap<String,String>> parse(JSONObject jObject){      

    JSONArray jPlaces = null;
    try {           
        /** Retrieves all the elements in the 'places' array */
        jPlaces = jObject.getJSONArray("results");
    } catch (JSONException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    /** Invoking getPlaces with the array of json object
     * where each json object represent a place
     */
    return getPlaces(jPlaces);
}


private List<HashMap<String, String>> getPlaces(JSONArray jPlaces){
    int placesCount = jPlaces.length();
    List<HashMap<String, String>> placesList = new ArrayList<HashMap<String,String>>();
    HashMap<String, String> place = null;   

    /** Taking each place, parses and adds to list object */
    for(int i=0; i<placesCount; i++){
        try {
            /** Call getPlace with place JSON object to parse the place */
            place = getPlace((JSONObject)jPlaces.get(i));
            placesList.add(place);

        } catch (JSONException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    return placesList;
}

/** Parsing the Place JSON object */
private HashMap<String, String> getPlace(JSONObject jPlace){

    HashMap<String, String> place = new HashMap<String, String>();
    String formatted_address = "-NA-";      
    String lat="";
    String lng="";


    try {
        // Extracting formatted address, if available
        if(!jPlace.isNull("formatted_address")){
            formatted_address = jPlace.getString("formatted_address");
        }           

        lat = jPlace.getJSONObject("geometry").getJSONObject("location").getString("lat");
        lng = jPlace.getJSONObject("geometry").getJSONObject("location").getString("lng");          


        place.put("formatted_address", formatted_address);          
        place.put("lat", lat);
        place.put("lng", lng);


    } catch (JSONException e) {         
        e.printStackTrace();
    }       
    return place;
}
}

Answer 1

You can set a bias for your query to prefer one region. Note that this will only prefer the specific region without excluding all other ones.

Based on your query you will have something like this:

https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=THEADDRESS&region=XX&sensor=true

XX is the ccTLD code of the region, e.g. sg for Singapore.