Google Maps State Pulldown menu - maps

Question

Is there anyway to get a pulldown menu of States with Google Maps?
I am interested in having the map center on a State from a pull down, sort of like this:
http://www.dyngeometry.com/web/WorldRegion.aspx
Thanks!

Answer 1

You could have a pre-populated list of states (and countries and their corresponding hierarchy, if you need more than one country and other administrative levels). Use the google maps geocoding api to get the bounding box and the center it using the location of the state that is returned.
So for California it would look something like:
Request:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=CA&key=your_key_here
Response:
{
results:[
{
address_components:[
{
long_name:"California",
short_name:"CA",
types:[
"administrative_area_level_1",
"political"
]
},
{
long_name:"United States",
short_name:"US",
types:[
"country",
"political"
]
}
],
formatted_address:"California, USA",
geometry:{
bounds:{
northeast:{
lat:42.0095169,
lng:-114.1313927
},
southwest:{
lat:32.5342622,
lng:-124.415165
}
},
location:{
lat:36.778261,
lng:-119.4179324
},
location_type:"APPROXIMATE",
viewport:{
northeast:{
lat:42.0095169,
lng:-114.1313927
},
southwest:{
lat:32.5342622,
lng:-124.415165
}
}
},
place_id:"ChIJPV4oX_65j4ARVW8IJ6IJUYs",
types:[
"administrative_area_level_1",
"political"
]
}
],
status:"OK"
}