Question

I have an existing map on a page. I can select that element using something along the lines of document.getElementById() to get the HTMLElement javascript object. Is it possible to get the instance of google.maps.Map created when the map is initialised, i.e. is it a property of the HTMLElement object or in its prototype?

Answer 1

You can’t get google.maps.Map object from DOM Element ,on which Google Maps object have been constructed. google.maps.Map is just a wrapper, which controls DOM Element for viewing the map, and that element does not have reference to its wrapper.

If your problem is only the scope, make map as a property of window object, and it will be accessible from everywhere in your page. You can make 'map' as global by using one of these:

 window.map = new google.maps.Map(..) 

or

 map = new google.maps.Map(...) //AVOID 'var'