Getting Started with WinForms Map

This tutorial will help you to quickly get started using the control.

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

To use RadMap when working with NuGet packages, install the Telerik.UI.for.WinForms.AllControls package. The package target framework version may vary.

Read more about NuGet installation in the Install using NuGet Packages article.

With the 2025 Q1 release, the Telerik UI for WinForms has a new licensing mechanism. You can learn more about it here.

Adding Assembly References Manually

When dragging and dropping a control from the Visual Studio (VS) Toolbox onto the Form Designer, VS automatically adds the necessary assemblies. However, if you're adding the control programmatically, you'll need to manually reference the following assemblies:

Telerik.Licensing.Runtime
Telerik.WinControls
Telerik.WinControls.RadMap
Telerik.WinControls.UI
TelerikCommon

The Telerik UI for WinForms assemblies can be install by using one of the available installation approaches.

Defining the RadMap

Please note that Bing Maps will be deprecated effective June 30, 2025. As an alternative, users can refer to the SDK example available in our GitHub repository, which demonstrates how to create a custom provider using the Azure Maps API. A valid Azure Maps subscription key is required to use this functionality.

Follow the steps:

1. Create a new Windows Application project. 2. Drop a RadMap control on the form and set its Dock property to Fill. 3. The RadMap control doesn't display any imagery data initially, it needs an IMapProvider instance from which to consume this data. This example will use Bing Maps for its imagery source. To achieve that you have to add a new BingRestMapProvider to the RadMap.Providers property.

You must provide a Bing Maps Key to the provider for it to work. To get your free Bing Maps Key, please refer to the following link: Getting a Bing Maps Key.

If you use RadMap with .Net Framework 2.0 and you don't have an installation of the Telerik UI for WinForms suite on the current machine, it is necessary to add a reference to the Newtonsoft.Json assembly which can be found in the \Bin folder of the Telerik_UI_For_WinForms_[version]_Dev_dlls.zip. If you are using .Net Framework 4.0 this is not requried.

If you want to use data caching, you should set an IMapCacheProvider instance to the BingRestMapProvider.CacheProvider property. In this example a LocalFileCacheProvider will be used:

Using BingRestMapProvider

string cacheFolder = @"..\..\cache";
BingRestMapProvider bingProvider = new Telerik.WinControls.UI.BingRestMapProvider();
bingProvider.UseSession = true;
bingProvider.BingKey = bingKey;
LocalFileCacheProvider cache = new LocalFileCacheProvider(cacheFolder);
bingProvider.CacheProvider = cache;
this.radMap1.Providers.Add(bingProvider);

Dim cacheFolder As String = "..\..\cache"
Dim bingProvider As BingRestMapProvider = New Telerik.WinControls.UI.BingRestMapProvider()
bingProvider.UseSession = True
bingProvider.BingKey = bingKey
Dim cache As New LocalFileCacheProvider(cacheFolder)
bingProvider.CacheProvider = cache
Me.radMap1.Providers.Add(bingProvider)

Figure 1: RadMap

WinForms RadMap Getting Started

Getting Started with WinForms Map

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

Adding Assembly References Manually

Defining the RadMap

Using BingRestMapProvider

See Also

Telerik UI for WinForms Learning Resources

Getting Started

Support Resources

Community