City maps

The Region column in the practice data holds city names: Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan and Makassar. Tableau has a built-in location database, so you only need to tell it that this field contains cities. Tableau looks up the coordinates itself, with no latitude/longitude columns needed. The background map loads from the internet, so make sure you are online.

1234 Zoom

Click a number on the picture or in this list to highlight that area.

1. 1Geographic Role The Region icon turns into a globe once it has the City role.
2. 2Latitude & Longitude (generated) pills Coordinates made by Tableau: Longitude on Columns, Latitude on Rows.
3. 3One circle per city Circle size follows revenue; Jakarta is the largest (about 753M).
4. 4Unknown indicator An example of what appears at the bottom right when cities are not recognised, e.g. 5 unknown. Click that text, then choose Edit Locations.... In this finished map every city is recognised, so the text is gone.

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: In the Data pane, right-click Region → Geographic Role → City. The icon next to Region becomes a globe (number 1), and two new italic fields appear: Latitude (generated) and Longitude (generated).

   Watch out: Use the Region field you tidied in Module 2 (the group field), not Region (raw). In Region (raw), "Bandung " (with a trailing space) is still separate from Bandung, so you may get double circles or unrecognised cities.

2. 2

   Step 2: Add a new sheet named Revenue Map, then double-click Region in the Data pane. Tableau builds a map right away: Longitude (generated) on Columns and Latitude (generated) on Rows (number 2), plus Region on Detail on the Marks card. Each city becomes one point.

3. 3

   Step 3: Look at the bottom-right corner of the map (number 4). If it says something like 5 unknown, Tableau has not recognised the cities, usually because it assumes they are in another country. Click that text → Edit Locations... → under Country/Region choose Fixed, then Indonesia → OK.

   Tip: The same window is under Map → Edit Locations.... If there is no unknown text, every city was recognised and you can skip this step.

   Watch out: Rows without a Region (Null) can also show up as unknown. Make sure the data source filter without Null from Module 2 is in place.

4. 4

   Step 4: Drag Revenue to Size on the Marks card. The circles grow with each city's revenue (number 3). Then drag Region once more to Label so each city name is written next to its circle. Hover over a circle to see its number in the tooltip.

   Tip: Circles too small? Click Size and move its slider to the right. Drag Revenue to Color as well if you want the colour to darken with it.