Innovative Tableau

Chapter 31. How to Make a Custom Geographic Map

To me, one of the most undervalued features in Tableau is its ability to visualize maps. Simply double-clicking a field that Tableau recognizes as geographic will generate a symbol map, saving us hours of manual work. As discussed in “Three Ways Psychological Schemas Can Improve Your Data Visualization,” Chapter 75 of Practical Tableau (O’Reilly, 2018), the spatial context that maps provide help us and our end users to process data more efficiently.

Did you know you can create a map out of literally anything in Tableau? My best known examples of this are stadium maps and showing the source of concussions (as seen in Chapter 11), but the same principles we used to create these maps can also be used to create custom geographic maps. Creating custom maps is a relatively easy way to set your reports apart and/or get your maps in-brand.

This chapter shows you how to map a background image in Tableau with any map image.

How to Map a Background Image to Create a Custom Geographic Map in Tableau

To help illustrate how to create a custom map in Tableau, here I re-create one of the maps featured in my visualization, Where’s Ryan?. I used the maps to show where I would be speaking in 2017, and I wanted them to be minimalist and represent my brand.

Here’s how it turned out:

To start the map of the United States, I first needed ...