Much like when zooming on a camera to get just the right picture, when instantiating the Map Control, you have the option to specify a starting coordinate set and zoom level for road or aerial view. But, you might be scratching your head on exactly what zoom level to start at if you want to get a particular level of detail.  I find the quickest way to find a good zoom level is to try a custom map URL and get the view to exactly where you would like to start your map.  Then, you can generate a permalink and quickly pick the zoom level out of there–just look the section of the URL that looks like “lvl=14“, which is the query string parameter we use to hold the zoom level.  Just take that number and put that value in for your zoom level parameter.

The same thing works for latitude and longitude as well, as the custom URL leverages the center lat/long of the current map view as it's center point or cp.

We also document the full list of URL parameters so you can leverage these values in your application: .