iOS 7 Programming Cookbook

9.1. Creating a Map View

Problem

You want to instantiate and display a map on a view.

Solution

Create an instance of the MKMapView class and add it to a view or assign it as a subview of your view controller. Here is the declaration part of the implementation of our view controller that creates an instance of MKMapView and displays it full-screen on its view:

#import "ViewController.h"
#import <MapKit/MapKit.h>

@interface ViewController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong) MKMapView *myMapView;
@end

@implementation ViewController

This is a simple root view controller with a variable of type MKMapView. Later in the implementation of this view controller (.m file), we will initialize the map and set its type to Satellite, like so:

- (void)viewDidLoad{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];

    self.myMapView = [[MKMapView alloc]
                      initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
    /* Set the map type to Satellite */
    self.myMapView.mapType = MKMapTypeSatellite;

    self.myMapView.autoresizingMask =
        UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth |
        UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight;

    /* Add it to our view */
    [self.view addSubview:self.myMapView];

}

Discussion

Creating an instance of the MKMapView class is quite straightforward. We can simply assign a frame to it using its constructor, and after the map is created, add it as a subview of the view on the screen just so that we can see it.

Note

MKMapView is a subclass of UIView, so you can manipulate any map view the way you manipulate an instance of UIView. We use ...