Highlight whole countries in Google Maps

google-maps

66,668

Solution 1

I was able to do this using the public World Country Boundaries.kml Fusion Table.

You'll need to add it as a Fusion Table Layer to your map.

Firstly initialize a map zoomed out right out, centered so we can see most countries:

var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map-canvas'), {
  center: new google.maps.LatLng(30,0),
  zoom: 2,
  mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
});

Next add the FusionTablesLayer:

var world_geometry = new google.maps.FusionTablesLayer({
  query: {
    select: 'geometry',
    from: '1N2LBk4JHwWpOY4d9fobIn27lfnZ5MDy-NoqqRpk'
  },
  map: map,
  suppressInfoWindows: true
});

That looks like this:

all countries

With regard to:

Is there a possibility to fade out the other, not used countries?

If you look at the Fusion Table you'll see there are columns for Name and ISO_2DIGIT. We can filter on these by passing a where condition to the FusionTablesLayer, e.g:

  query: {
    select: 'geometry',
    from: '1N2LBk4JHwWpOY4d9fobIn27lfnZ5MDy-NoqqRpk',
    where: "ISO_2DIGIT IN ('US', 'GB', 'DE')"
  },

To give:

filter countries with where

Solution 2

For any one who ends up here in the future, this seems to now be handled very well by Google Charts, the latest implementation of the deprecated link above

https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/geochart

Solution 3

Old question, but: Google's deprecated Map Charts API looks like a better solution, if you do not need the map to be draggable:

https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/gallery/new_map_charts

enter image description here

This api will continue to work at lest until April 2015: https://developers.google.com/chart/terms

Important: The Image Charts portion of Google Chart Tools has been officially deprecated as of April 20, 2012. It will continue to work as per our deprecation policy.

Solution 4

Currently (API version 3) there seems to exist no possibility to increase border-thickness for single countries.

Solution 5

If you just want a map of Germany why not use this:

http://jvectormap.com/maps/countries/germany/

Germany is already available

View more solutions

66,668

Author by

Armin

Freelancer from Cologne, Germany

Updated on November 24, 2020

Comments

Armin over 3 years

I have a general question about Google Maps. I want to use Google Maps just for germany, but of course the neighbor countries are shown as well. The border of germany is rarely visible.

Is there a possibility to fade out the other, not used countries?
Armin over 12 years

I need all the details which are containing in Google Maps.
defau1t over 12 years

can you please elaborate what is your exact requirement. No doubt google maps is always the answer, I am just wondering if your problem can be solved with other map type solution
Armin over 12 years

Okay, I have coded a vector based map solution for a customer, which calculates the position of dots by long and lat and creates clusters (goo.gl/LvfFN - the map on the left side) . The customer wants additionally a gmaps implentation. Do you want to ask him why? I suppose this is not part of my initial question!
defau1t over 12 years

Then from the google maps prespective, the best approach for you is to use google chart tools code.google.com/apis/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/geomap.h‌tml, if you wanyt to leverage google maps then you need to overlays and highlight the germany map, like what is here for usa map econym.org.uk/gmap/example_egroundoverlay.htm
Armin over 12 years

Sad, that there seems to be no fancier solution :( But thanks for your efforts!
defau1t over 12 years

right, there is no fancier solution than this. you might still explore raphael js or the plugin I mentioned.
Jeroen K almost 11 years

Even if you change the color, this is pretty ugly. Especially as the layer goes over the country names.
davetapley almost 11 years

You make a valid point, I've created an issue here.
Olli about 10 years

@defau1t thanks for fixing it - yesterday jvectormap.owl-hollow.net did not exist at all.
defau1t about 10 years

@Olli: that's true, the link was down but not 404. I saw someone down voted the post today so I was curious what could be the reason?
Haya Raed about 10 years

Is it possible to choose the highlight colour?
davetapley about 10 years

@HayaRaed yes, see Fusion Table Styles in the docs.
martin jakubik almost 7 years

@defau1t can you fix the link in the post? ...owl-hollow... does not respond.
defau1t almost 7 years

@martinjakubik: Here you go jvectormap.com/maps/countries/germany if you find any post as useful make sure you vote up the answer :)
martin jakubik almost 7 years

@defau1t I meant why don't you Edit your post and fix it... but I did it myself. Otherwise your post is wrong and people have to read down the comments to find the right link.
Martin Zvarík over 5 years

FYI: Fusion Tables are now deprecated and will be removed next month.
Cristian over 4 years

is there a way to achieve this now since fusion tables are deprecated?
Cristian over 4 years

is there a way to costumize the map and apply zooming and paning?