Glossary

Plus codes

We can define Plus Codes are defined as digital addresses for a specific point on the map. Plus Codes exist as letters and numbers, and since we base them on latitude and longitude coordinates, we can use them even to locate places that do not have a physical address. For example, MXQ4+P66 New York, USA is the Plus Code for the Statue of Liberty. You can find Plus Codes using this link.

URL-encoded addresses

While passing values to a URL, there are some characters like spaces that we cannot use. When passing addresses to the Maps API URL, we encode such characters with other URL-friendly special characters to deal with this issue, like replacing spaces with either %20 or the plus sign, +.

Let’s take the address of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, "Eiffel Tower,Paris France", as an example. The URL-encoded address for this would be "Eiffel+Tower,Paris+France".

ccTLDs (country code top-level domains)

As the name suggests, ccTLDs are top-level domain names we use to represent the domain for a specific country or region. All countries have domain names registered against them that are usually defined using a two-letter ccTLD. Here’s a complete list of ccTLDs, including some generic top-level domains.