How get an Android certificate in eclipse and the Google Maps API key

This is one thing that bothers so many beginners who wants to add a google map to their android application. So in this tutorial I will show the path towards getting a API Key from google.  To access the Google Maps servers with the Maps API, you have to add a Maps API key to your application. The key is free, you can use it with any of your applications that call the Maps API, and it supports an unlimited number of users.

01. How to find your app's certificate information

Step by step I’ll show you how get it done in eclipse. First start eclipse and let’s create a new project

We’ll call the project “demogooglemap” and specially remember the name of the package that you put because we’ll need it shortly.

After creating the project go to Windows à preferences  

 

Expand the Android tab à Build, then copy the SHA1 fingerprint value as it will also be needed shortly.

 

02. Obtain a Google Maps API key

After required information is collected now it is time to obtain the API key from google. To do it

1. Navigate to your project in the Google APIs Console (https://code.google.com/apis/console/?noredirect)

It will ask you to log in then you will be redirected to a page which will look like

    

Then go to Services page, verify that the "Google Maps Android API v2" is enabled.

      

Next in the navigation bar, click API Access.

Now In the resulting dialog, enter the SHA-1 fingerprint, then a semicolon, then your application's package name. Here you have to use previously gathered SHA1 fingerprint value and the package name we used while creating the project.

Now copy the API key as shown in the following image

03. Add the API key to your application

Add the following code in the AndroidManifest.xml withe the API key which you got from the google console. 

<meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.maps.v2.API_KEY"
    android:value="API_KEY"/>

Replace the android:value, API_KEY with the value returned by Google console