Getting started with Azure Maps Android SDK

12/10/2020
2 minutes to read

The Azure Maps Android SDK is a vector map library for Android. This article guides you through the processes of installing the Azure Maps Android SDK and loading a map.

Prerequisites

Be sure to complete the steps in the Quickstart: Create an Android app document.

Localizing the map

The Azure Maps Android SDK provides three different ways of setting the language and regional view of the map. The following code shows how to set the language to French ("fr-FR") and the regional view to "Auto".

The first option is to pass the language and view regional information into the AzureMaps class using the static setLanguage and setView methods globally. This will set the default language and regional view across all Azure Maps controls loaded in your app.

static {
    //Set your Azure Maps Key.
    AzureMaps.setSubscriptionKey("<Your Azure Maps Key>");

    //Set the language to be used by Azure Maps.
    AzureMaps.setLanguage("fr-FR");

    //Set the regional view to be used by Azure Maps.
    AzureMaps.setView("Auto");
}

The second option is to pass the language and view information into the map control XML.

<com.microsoft.azure.maps.mapcontrol.MapControl
    android:id="@+id/myMap"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    app:mapcontrol_language="fr-FR"
    app:mapcontrol_view="Auto"
    />

The third option is to programmatically set the language and regional view of the map using the maps setStyle method. This can be done at any time to change the language and regional view of the map.

mapControl.onReady(map -> {
    map.setStyle(
        language("fr-FR"),
        view("Auto")
    );
});

Here is an example of Azure Maps with the language set to "fr-FR" and regional view set to "Auto".

Azure Maps, map image showing labels in French

A complete list of supported languages and regional views is documented here.

Navigating the map

There are several different ways in which the map can be zoomed, panned, rotated, and pitched. The following details all the different ways to navigate the map.

Zoom the map

Touch the map with two fingers and pinch together to zoom out or spread the fingers apart to zoom in.
Double tap the map to zoom in one level.
Double tap with two fingers to zoom out the map one level.
Tap twice; on second tap, hold your finger on the map and drag up to zoom in, or down to zoom out.

Pan the map

Touch the map and drag in any direction.

Rotate the map

Touch the map with two fingers and rotate.

Pitch the map

Touch the map with two fingers and drag them up or down together.

Azure Government cloud support

The Azure Maps Android SDK supports the Azure Government cloud. The Azure Maps Android SDK is accessed from the same Maven repository. The following tasks will need to be done to connect to the Azure Government cloud version of the Azure Maps platform.

In same place where the Azure Maps authentication details are specified, add the following line of code to tell the map to use the Azure Maps government cloud domain.