google maps: search in specific countries - php

Question

I have a form in my PHP application which searches for locations in europe: Germany, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Romania, Italy.
This is my base query:
$address = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address={$input}";
If the users tries to find "mannheim" for example, it should return Mannheim, Germany.
Instead it returns a point in Pennsylvania, US. I tried adding this address component restriction: &components=administrative_area:EU, but this is not reliable because instead of finding Mannheim Germany, it points to a place 300 km away:
https://www.google.ro/maps/dir/50.5320001,6.6364339/Mannheim/#50.0388399,8.4546225,7.25z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x4797cc24518e3f45:0xb1e4fe7aa406e687!2m2!1d8.4660395!2d49.4874592?hl=en
If I append , Germany:
$address = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address={$input}, Germany";
then the response is correct.
Is there a way to specify some countries for which the search should happen?
A last resort is to make a separate search for each country, but this would be really slow given the ~10-12 countries I search in.

Answer 1

restrict google search result via country restriction like this below:
var options = {
componentRestrictions: {country: 'DE'}
};
and place options parameter in Autocomplete or other function you are using.
var autocomplete = new google.maps.places.Autocomplete(input,options);

Answer 2

Looks like it's possible now: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-autocomplete-multiple-countries#maps_places_autocomplete_multiple_countries-javascript
// Sets a listener on a given radio button. The radio buttons specify
// the countries used to restrict the autocomplete search.
function setupClickListener(id, countries) {
const radioButton = document.getElementById(id);
radioButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
autocomplete.setComponentRestrictions({ country: countries });
});
}
setupClickListener("changecountry-usa", "us");
setupClickListener("changecountry-usa-and-uot", [
"us",
"pr",
"vi",
"gu",
"mp",
]);

Answer 3

According to google docs, we can add up to 5 countries in component filter
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/autocomplete
A grouping of places to which you would like to restrict your results. Currently, you can use components to filter by up to 5 countries. Countries must be passed as a two character, ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 compatible country code. For example: components=country:fr would restrict your results to places within France. Multiple countries must be passed as multiple country:XX filters, with the pipe character | as a separator. For example: components=country:us|country:pr|country:vi|country:gu|country:mp would restrict your results to places within the United States and its unincorporated organized territories.