Is autocomplete still no supported by Bing Maps REST APIs?

Question

Hi all,

I simply want to confirm that an "autocomplete" API is still not supported by Bing Maps. Based on the REST API documentation (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/rest-services/) and previous MSDN forum posts (https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/25131be0-20b8-451b-a55a-d151e7e68505/address-autosuggestautocomplete?forum=bingmapsservices) this was not supported many years ago and I can't seem to find any updates about this.

Usecase:
User wants to do a global location search in an input field, starts typing "Lon", "Lond", Londo" etc., wants to see suggestions for London based on a reliability/scoring system, then the tool needs the geocoordinates for location selected by the user. Currently this does not seem to be possible with Bing Maps REST APIs without having the user's coordinates or a map view involved, while it is easily doable in Azure Maps (e.g. Fuzzy Search), or in other map services on the market.

Answer 1

Bing Maps has an autocomplete REST API: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/rest-services/autosuggest

It is also available as a UI control within web SDK: https://www.bing.com/api/maps/sdkrelease/mapcontrol/isdk/autosuggestui

If your query is about the above API requiring user location input to help weight the results, but you want to leave it open to global results, you can add &userCircularMapView=0,0,20000000 to your query. This basically is a map view of the whole globe. For example:

https://dev.virtualearth.net/REST/v1/Autosuggest?query=Lon&userCircularMapView=0,0,20000000&includeEntityTypes=Place&key=<Your Bing Maps Key>