Google has recently changed its API requirements, and users are now required to register with Google. From a user’s perspective, there are essentially three ramifications of this:
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Users must register with Google. You can do this at https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/. While it will require a valid credit card (sorry!), there seems to be a fair bit of free use before you incur charges, and even then the charges are modest for light use.
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Users must enable the APIs they intend to use. What may appearas one overarching “Google Maps” product, Google in fact has several services that it provides as geo-related solutions. For example, the Maps Static API provides map images, while the Geocoding API provides geocoding and reverse geocoding services. Apart from the relevant Terms of Service, generally rgooglemaps users don’t need to think about the different services. However, you do need to enable the APIs before you use them. You’ll only need to do that once, and then they’ll be ready for you to use. Enabling the APIs just means clicking a few radio buttons on the Google Maps Platform web interface listed above, so it’s easy.
Your API key is private and unique to you, so be careful not to share it online, for example in a GitHub issue or saving it in a shared R script file. If you share it inadvertantly, just get on Google’s website and regenerate your key - this will retire the old one.
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From CRAN:
install.packages("rgooglemaps") -
From Github:
if (!requireNamespace("devtools")) install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("markusloecher/rgooglemaps")