How to Create a Map in Power BI

Power BI Maps are a great tool for visualizing geographical data.

And not to mention, in today’s data-driven world, understanding geospatial trends is crucial to stay on top of the game 🏆

While a lot of location-based data can often be too overwhelming to digest, Power BI is an advanced business intelligence tool that helps you create interactive and stunning maps to present this data better.

In this guide, we will walk you through the basics of creating (and formatting) different maps in Microsoft Power BI, step-by-step.

Let’s go learning!

Table of Contents

Types of Power BI Maps

Power BI is all about bringing the best out of your data in a manner that’s easy on digestion and appealing to the eyes 🤩

Even for presenting geographical data, Power BI makes one of the finest choices as it offers a variety of maps that you can create out of your data in Power BI.

To list down, Power BI offers 5 kinds of map visuals that you can easily create in Power BI:

1. Basic Maps (the basic map type to plot data points on a map)
2. Filled Maps (maps to highlight geographical regions with different colors or patterns based on a specific measure)
3. ArcGIS Maps (Map integrated with ArcGIS to offer advanced mapping capabilities)
4. Shape Maps (the map type that compares countries, states, or counties, and colors them based on a measure)
5. Azure Maps (the advanced map type that leverages Azure Maps to create detailed maps with features like traffic, weather, and points of interest.

Here’s a quick snippet of how all these maps look side by side.

To learn which map suits you right and how can you create and use them all in Power BI, let me take you through the tutorial below that teaches it all.

Preparing your data

For all the maps that we create next, we will be using the Regional Sales Sample.

You can get this and many other sample datasets to practice Power BI by following the steps in our Find Sample Data guide.

But, if you’re creating maps using your own dataset, here are some key pointers to bear in mind 🧠

• Identify Geographic Fields:

Your data must have geographic fields to be plotted on the map.

Location: This could be a city, state, country, or postal code.

Latitude and Longitude: Precise coordinates for specific locations.

• See if your data is properly categorized:

To see if your data is rightly categorized (or geocoded), look out for the globe icon before it in the Fields pane. This tells that Power BI identifies it as a location-type data 🗺

If not, you’ll have to change and set the data categorization in Power BI Desktop.

• Perform Geocoding (if necessary):

If you have addresses as text, you may use Power BI’s built-in geocoding feature or external tools to convert them into latitude and longitude. This will entirely remove all sorts of ambiguity that Power BI may have had if there were homonymous cities.

The Latitude and Longitude data can then be dragged to the Latitude and Longitude fields.

Let’s now see how you can create all these maps in Power BI 🌠

Basic Map

The Basic Map in Power BI is a simple visual that allows the displaying of data points on a geographical map.

Here’s how you create it in Power BI:

Step 1) Launch Power BI and open up a new page in your report.

Step 2) Have the relevant data loaded to your Power BI Report.

Step 3) From the Visualizations pane, click on the Basic Map Icon as shown below.

This will add an empty basic map to your Report canvas 🌐

Step 4) Add the geographical information to the Location field in the Visualizations pane from the Fields pane.

This adds bubbles to each location on the map (coherent to the underlying dataset).

Step 5) Add any numeric measure to the Bubble Size field to show its relevance to the location.

For example, we are adding “Revenue Won” to the Bubble Size field.

This makes all the bubbles vary in size based on the underlying dataset 💦

Once you’ve created your basic map, you can format its appearance and behavior in many ways. Here’s what to do.

• Map Type:

Choose between different map types (e.g., road, aerial, or hybrid) to suit your visualization needs. Go to the Visualizations pane > Format tab > Map Settings > Style.

• Heat Map:

Turn the Heat Map style on or off.

• Bubbles:

Similarly, you can adjust how the bubbles look by going to the Visualizations pane > Format tab > Bubbles.

Just like that, explore other formatting options to see what you can do about a Basic Map in Power BI.

Filled Map

A filled map, also known as a choropleth map, shows shaded geographic areas.

Looks like a heat map but a filled map displays different values on the map by color scaling and saturation 🔥

To create a filled map in Power BI:

Step 1) Launch Power BI and open up a new page in your report.

Step 2) Have the relevant data loaded to your Power BI Report.

Step 3) From the Visualizations pane, click on the Filled Map Icon as shown below.

This will add an empty-filled map to your Report canvas.

Step 4) Drag the relevant geographical data to the Location field. We are adding State or Province.

All the territories will be filled with colors.

Step 5) You can also add legends to the map. For example, we are adding Industry as the legend.

All territories are colored in a specific legend-based color.

The formatting options for a filled map are more or less the same as a basic map 🎨

Check these out by going to the Visualizations pane > Format tab.

Scroll around and try out different ways you upgrade how the map visual in your report looks.

ArcGIS Maps

The ArcGIS map of Power BI is a powerful visual that helps you demonstrate the patterns in your data and draw insights from your data that you couldn’t have seen any other way 🌎

It offers mapping capabilities, location analytics, demographic data, and spatial analysis tools.

Let’s create an ArcGIS map in Power BI.

Step 1) Launch Power BI and open up a new page in your report.

Step 2) Have the relevant data loaded to your Power BI Report.

Step 3) From the Visualizations pane, click on the ArcGIS icon that looks like below.

An optional ArcGIS user sign-in dialog might pop up when you add the ArcGIS visual in Power BI.

Step 4) Sign in or continue as a guest to continue.

This will add an empty ArcGIS map to the Power BI canvas like below ✍

Step 5) Add the geographical data to the Location field in the Visualizations pane from the Fields pane.

Step 6) If your data has them, you can also drag coordinates into the appropriate Latitude and Longitude fields.

Step 7) Next, add any numeric data measure to the Size field to determine how the data is presented.

I have added “Revenue Won” to the Size field.

Similarly, you can add any numeric measure to the Color field to have it projected through color saturation.

The ArcGIS map shows the bubbles for each region on the map. Note that the size of the bubbles on each region of the map varies in size based on the dataset.

As you hover your cursor over the map, Power BI shows you details of the data populated behind it (interactive maps, as we call it) 🔮

Time we see how you can format the ArcGIS map once it is created.

Step 8) In the Visualizations pane, select the Format tab to view the formatting options.

The formatting options available to us broadly include 👇

• Layers: It allows you to change the title of the Layers list, its visibility, and its position in the expanded Map tools.
• Map tools: Allows you to specify if the Zoom and Basemaps buttons are visible in the expanded Map tools. Also, define the position of the infographic cards on the map.
• Location type: Specify the country or region from the dropdown list in which your data is located to improve the accuracy of locations on your map.
• Search: Specify if the search button will be visible on the map.

Additionally, you’ll see there are not a lot of formatting options here. The remaining options for editing the ArcGIS map come in the extended Map tools.

These options broadly include:

• Basemap (the basic map style; Dark gray canvas, Light Gray canvas, etc).

• Location type (represent locations as points or boundaries)

• Styling (choices for the color ramp and outline)

• Layers adjustment (settings for the symbol used with bubble as default)

• Infographics (available demographics you can add to the map)

Check out the different extended map options available in Power BI and to edit the map, just click on your desired option.

Shape Maps

The Shape Map of Power BI is used to compare different regions based on color.

It will not show the precise geographical locations on a map but help regional comparison by coloring each region differently 🏃‍♀️

Pro Tip!

You can only test the Shape Map in Power BI Desktop and not in Power BI Service.

Even in Power BI Desktop, to use it, you must first enable it as it is in Preview Mode. Here’s how you do it.

Go to the File tab > Options and Settings > Options > Preview Features > Check the Shape Map Visual option.

Restart Power BI after you’ve checked this option.

Let’s create a Shape map in Power BI now.

After you’ve enabled the Shape Map from the settings, you will find the Shape Map icon in the Visualizations pane 📊

Step 1) Click on the Shape Map icon to add an empty Shape map to your BI canvas.

Step 2) In the Fields pane, drag the field with relevant geographical names to the Location field.

Step 3) Add a data measure to the Color Saturation bucket.

Color saturation based on that data measure will distinguish all the regions.

For example, I have dragged the Revenue Won field to the color saturation bucket.

Power BI colors all the regions based on the Revenue won by each. The color saturation intensifies with the numeric measure behind it 👩‍🏫

Step 4) Under the Visualizations tab, go to the Format pane, go to the Map settings, and set the Map type to fit your dataset.

I have set it to USA: States, as my data pertains to it so selecting any other map type won’t make a lot of sense.

Step 5) Set up the Projection type too.

Projection is the way how you want the Earth to be displayed as a two-dimensional map. You have three options to set this up.

• Equirectangular: The Globe is shown as a grid with equal rectangular cells of the same size and shape.
• Mercator: Distorts polar areas more than equirectangular areas. The Equator is depicted as the line of tangency.
• Orthographic: Realistic 3D view, shows half the globe at a time.

Moving forward, you can format shape maps in Power BI leveraging formatting options such as Default color, Zoom, classifying data categories to the Legend field, and more.

Azure Maps

The Azure Map Visuals in Power BI offers a rich visualization of spatial data on a map.

It helps gain insights into how the location context relates to and influences the business data 🏢

Pro Tip!

Here are some interesting facts about how the Azure Maps work:

• The Azure Maps Power BI visual is a very versatile visual as it connects to a cloud service hosted in Azure to retrieve location data (for example, map images and coordinates).
• Details about the area that the map covers are sent to Azure to retrieve images needed to render the map canvas. These are called map tiles.
• Location, Latitude, and Longitude buckets data may be sent to Azure to retrieve map coordinates for geocoding.
• Telemetry data may be collected if the telemetry option in Power BI is enabled.

To create an Azure Map in Power BI:

Step 1) Launch Power BI and open up a new page in your report.

Step 2) From the Visualizations pane, click on the Azure map icon.

Power BI will create an empty Azure map visual on the canvas.

Step 3) Either drag the Latitude / Longitude data fields information into the Latitude/Longitude buckets. Or drag the geospatial data field to the Location bucket.

I am adding the State or Province data to the Location field 🧾

This will create the basic Azure map as here.

Step 4) To add color-based categorization, drag a categorical field into the Legend bucket. Like I am adding Industry to the Legends field.

Step 5) Take it a step ahead to see the relativity in data by dragging a measure into the Size bucket of the Fields pane.

I have added “Revenue Won” to the size bucket to see the map showing revenue won by each territory in each industry as below 🎯

With this, you have created the basic Azure Map in Power BI.

Check out different options in the Format pane to customize how the map turns out.

Comes down to how creative you are with your visuals!

Conclusion

By following the guide above, you can effectively create visually appealing maps on Power BI. Do not miss out on the customization and formatting options that each map offers to tailor your maps, as you like 🤿

It’s only about practicing making maps and tweaking the different formatting options before you’re able to create sophisticated maps to seek valuable insights from geospatial data.

In this tutorial, we have learned how you can create maps starting from a basic variant to advanced ones where you can also add infographics.

In addition to maps, there are many other attractive visuals that you can create in Power BI. After all, Power BI is meant for data visualization, if anything. Check out how to create other exciting visuals out of your data in Power BI through the following tutorials.

• How to Create a Gantt Chart in Power BI (for Free)
• How to Create a Hierarchy in Power BI (Explained Simply)