You have 2 aptions to search
1) Nearby search returns complete information of each place but it returns up to 20 results on each query and if more places available, it returns a "next page" token.
url="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch/json?location="+lat+","+long+"&radius=" +radius+"&types=" + types + "&key=<PUT_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>";
lat and long are your center coordinates.
radius is measured in meters and is a value up to 50000.
types is the type of Place you are searching according to this listing: https://developers.google.com/places/supported_types . Example: "atm"
2) Radar search that returns a reduced set of information of each place but it returns up to 200 on each query
url="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/radarsearch/json?location="+lat+","+long+"&radius=" +radius+"&types=" + types + "&key=<PUT_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>";
lat and long are your center coordinates.
radius is measured in meters and is a value up to 50000.
types is the type of Place you are searching according to this listing: https://developers.google.com/places/supported_types . Example: "atm"
You have more options to search, keyword & name appart from type.
You can have your results on xml or json format.
Full definition of nearby and radar search is here: https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/search