This section picks the service that draws your map and looks up addresses, and holds the keys for it. Every other section assumes this one is already working, so set it first.

Map service

Choose which service provides the map tiles, the address search and the driving directions:

• OpenStreetMap (Leaflet) — no key needed for the map itself. Address searches go through Nominatim.
• Stadia Maps — a key is required. The free plan does not allow commercial use.
• Mapbox — a key is required, and a credit card on file if you want to store geocoding results.
• Google Maps — a browser key and a server key are required, on an account with active billing.

Changing the service changes which options below are visible: each one only shows the keys and languages that apply to it. It also affects a handful of options elsewhere — the hover effect in User Experience, and the cluster defaults in Markers — because not every service supports the same behaviour.

OpenStreetMap (Leaflet)

Openrouteservice API key
Only needed if you want the driving route drawn on the map itself. Without it, OpenStreetMap can still show your locations and hand directions off to an external site — see Show the route on an external website? in User Experience.

Openrouteservice language
Language for the turn-by-turn directions.

API response language
Language for the Nominatim address lookups.

Validate API key
Sends a real request with the keys you entered and reports what came back. Use Show response to see the raw reply, which is usually the fastest way to identify a key restriction or a billing problem. Each service has its own button, next to its own keys.

Stadia Maps

API key
Required. See Create a Stadia Maps API key.

API response language
Language for the geocoder’s responses.

Use EU endpoints
Routes every request — map tiles, geocoding, search and routing — through Stadia’s EU servers, so the data is processed inside the European Union. Enable this if you have a GDPR data residency requirement.

Country filtering
Controls how the countries you select affect search results:

Mapbox

API key
Required before Mapbox will serve anything. See Create a Mapbox API key.

Server geocoder
A request goes to the geocoding service whenever a store is created without coordinates. Mapbox only allows you to permanently store the coordinates it returns if you have a valid credit card on the account. Without one, you are licensed for temporary use only.

API response language
Language for the geocoder’s responses. Mapbox supports different levels of coverage per language.

Google Maps

Browser key
Used by the Google Maps JavaScript API — the map your visitors see. Required for Google Maps. Keeping a separate browser key lets you watch and cap that usage on its own.

Server key
Used by the Google Maps Geocoding API — the lookup that turns an address into coordinates when you save a store, and when a visitor searches. Required for Google Maps.

Creating both keys is covered in Create Google API Keys.

API response language
Sets the language of the text Google returns, and of the labels on the map itself. Leave it empty to use the visitor’s browser preference.

On a multilingual site, switch it per language with the wpsl_gmap_api_params filter rather than pinning one value here.

Country filtering

• Bias results (soft) — favours one country but still returns matches anywhere.
• Restrict results (hard) — returns results only from the countries you select, up to 15 of them.

Bias country
The country that soft bias prefers. With Australia selected, a search for “Newcastle” favours the Australian one over the English one — but a visitor can still search for places in the United Kingdom and find them.

Hard restriction behaves differently: it will not return anything outside the selected countries at all.