Welcome to Excel Jet Consult blog post. In this tutorial, we want to see how to use the new Shape Map available in Power BI November 2019 update and onward. Let’s get started
The Shape Map allows users to display relative comparisons of States, Provinces and Regions on a map using colors. The Show Map visual needs to be activated before it is available in the visualization group.
Activate Shape Map Visual
To activate Shape Map visual, click on File tab
Select Options and settings and options respectively
In the Options dialogue box, select Preview features
In the available Preview features, check Shape map visual
Click OK. To complete the process, restart Power BI Desktop
In the caption below, we can see the Shape map visual beside Filled map visual
Creating Shape Map
In the caption below, we have US States and Population
To create Shape Map visual report, click on the Shape Map
Drag and drop States and Population fields into the Location and Color saturation areas respectively
In the caption above, we have single light theme default color. When we hover the mouse on the Shape Map, we can see the information for each State.
Data colors formatting
In the format, click on Data colors and turn on Diverging. Diverging allows us to apply different color saturation and specify Minimum, Center and Maximum values. In the captions below, I turned on the Diverging and set the Minimum, Center and Maximum values as follows 2,000,000, 10,000,000 and 18,000,000. This implies that States with Population up to 5,000,000 are classified as Minimum; between 5,000,001 to 10,000,000 classified as Center; States with population above 18,000,000 classified as Maximum
In the caption below, the following States has yellow color saturation Texas, California, Florida and New York. Each of these States has population above 18,000,000
Shape Formatting
The Shape format allows users to Map from the drop-down. One useful guide is that users can tell whether a Country is using States, Provinces or Regions. In addition, users can Add map and select preferred Projection from the bottom drop-down. See the caption below
Conclusion
The Shape Map is useful to see comparisons using different color saturation. However, we have few countries that the map can work with. Hopefully, other countries of the world will be added in future updates