Working with Geo Maps

About Geo Maps

A geo map overlays your data on a geographic map. You can display your data either as bubbles, as a scatter plot, or as colored regions on the geo map.

To display a geo map, you must define one or more of the categories as geography data items. For more information, see Defining a Geography Data Item.

Data Roles for a Geo Map

The basic data roles for a bubble plot are:

Map style

specifies the type of data overlay for the map. Select one of the following values:

Coordinates

displays your data as a simple scatter plot on the map. Each point is located at the center of a geographic region or at the coordinates of a location.

Bubbles

displays your data as a series of bubbles. Each bubble is located at the center of a geographic region or at the coordinates of a location.

Regions

displays your data as colored regions on the map.

Note: The Regions map style is not available for custom geographic roles or for ZIP codes.

Geography

specifies the geography data item that identifies geographic regions for your map.

Geography data items are identified by the geography icon

icon.

Bubble size

for the Bubbles map style, specifies the measure that determines the bubble size.

Color

for the Regions map style, specifies the measure that determines the regions’ colors.

for the Bubbles map style, specifies a measure that determines the bubble color.

Specify Properties for a Geo Map

On the Properties tab, you can specify the following options:

Name

specifies the name of the visualization.

Title

specifies the title that appears above the graph.

Note: The Title option is disabled if you select Generate graph title.

Generate graph title

specifies that the graph title is generated automatically based on the data items in the visualization.

Map service

specifies the source for the background map.

Size scale

specifies the type of scaling that is used to draw the bubbles. Select one of the following values:

Linear

specifies that the bubble sizes are scaled relative to the minimum and maximum values (or frequencies) in your data. A negative value is displayed as a smaller bubble than a positive value.

For the Linear scaling type, the difference in bubble sizes might not be proportional to the difference in values.

Magnitude

specifies that the bubble sizes are scaled relative to zero and the greatest absolute value in your data. A negative value is displayed as a circle with a waving edge.

For the Magnitude scaling type, the difference in bubble sizes is proportional to the difference in absolute values.

Note: This option is available only for the Bubbles map style.

Frequency

specifies whether the frequency values are displayed as the number of values (Count) or as the percentage of values (Percent).

Show map navigation control

specifies whether the map zoom and pan controls are visible.

Color gradient

selects the gradient colors for the visualization.

You can click the Edit color gradient button

to select the values that are used to assign the colors. See Specify a Custom Data Range.

Transparency

specifies the amount of transparency for the data overlay.

Zoom a Geo Map

You can zoom the map by using any of the following controls:

click the zoom bar to select your zoom level
press the + and – buttons on the zoom bar
scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in or zoom out at the location of the cursor

Pan (Scroll) a Geo Map

You can pan (scroll) the map by using any of the following controls:

click and drag the map
click the arrows on the pan control