Module google_maps::places::place_search

The Place Search service lets you search for place information using a variety of categories, including establishments, prominent points of interest, and geographic locations. You can search for places either by proximity or a text string. A Place Search returns a list of places along with summary information about each place; additional information is available via a Place Details query.

Note: Server-side and client-side libraries

• The Places API is also available with the Java Client, Python Client, Go Client and Node.js Client for Google Maps Services. The Places API and the client libraries are for use in server applications.

• If you’re building a client-side application, take a look at the Places SDK for Android, the Places SDK for iOS, and the Places Library, Maps JavaScript API.

Compare search types

There are three search endpoints available with different characteristics. The following table highlights some of these differences.

Type	Field selection	Text search	Ambiguous text	Location filter	Additional filters
Find Place	✔️	✔️ input	✔️	✔️	❌
Nearby Search	❌	✔️ keyword	❌	✔️	✔️
Text Search	❌	✔️ query	✔️	✔️	✔️

Field selection

There is no way to constrain Nearby Search or Text Search to only return specific fields. To keep from requesting (and paying for) data that you don’t need, use a Find Place request instead.

Ambiguous text

Find Place and Text Search are optimized for matching ambiguous text across a number of fields while Nearby Search is constrained to strict matches on a subset of fields.

Additional filters

Nearby Search and Text Search allow additional parameters to filter results, (e.g. minprice, maxprice, opennow, and type).

Modules

text_search

A Text Search returns information about a set of places based on a string — for example “pizza in New York” or “shoe stores near Ottawa” or “123 Main Street”. The service responds with a list of places matching the text string and any location bias that has been set.