The Tableau mapping space contains the elements and objects you need in your mapping assignments. It comprises of;
The data pane
The marks card
The map menu
The view tool bar
The visualization area
Data pane
The Tableau data pane organizes your data into dimensions and measures. Typically your location fields (such as State, Region, Country etc) should be dimensions while your latitude and longitude fields measures.
Visual cues (such as globe icon) next to such location fields imply that a geographical role is allocated to such fields.
A – The globe icons imply that the fields have been assigned to a geographical role hence can be mapped in Tableau.
B – The Latitude (generated) and Longitude (generated) fields are automatically generated when your assign a geographical role to a location field. They too can be used in mapping.
Marks Card
Marks card area is where you control granularity and visual detail of your map view. You can drag location fields to detail to add more granularity or drag fields to size, color or label to add visual details and change marks type from point map to polygon map.
C – Change your mark type from point map to polygon map.
D – Add visual details such as color, size and label to your map.
E – Add location fields to detail to create your maps or add more granularity.
Map menu
The map menu contains several options;
Background maps – this allows you add map service (such as Mapbox), enabling you change background maps available in your workbook.
Background images – this options allows you to use static images to create maps.
Geocoding – the geocoding option allows you import locations Tableau does not recognize into your maps.
Edit Locations – This option allows you edit location data to match Tableau map data.
Map layers – this allows you customize you map background style either by adding or removing map layers.
Map option – This option is used to control if users can pan, zoom or use the view tool bar.
View tool bar
The view tool bar houses several map controls.
F – Use map search icon to such locations in your map.
G – Use (+) or (-) to zoom in and out of your maps.
H – Use pin to fix your map at a specific zoom level
I – Access other options such as zoom area, pan and selection options.
Visualization area
This is where your visualization (map) appears.
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