The Regional Map View colors geographic areas according values in the data, at the level of the state, county, province, or prefecture.
In the "Views" tab of your Visualization, click the Regional Map thumbnail to configure a Regional Map View for your Visualization.
The configuration window will appear with the settings on the left and a preview on the right. The preview will automatically update as you make edits.
There are three tabs in the settings on the left: "Controls", "Mappings" and "Descriptions".
"Configure Menus" is where you can edit the Fields users will have access to in your View. For each option selected in the drop-down menu you will find a list of Fields. Select the checkboxes to show or hide Fields in the corresponding menu of your View, and click the home icon to determine the initial setting for your View. (To edit the Field name, return to the Fields tab in the main menu of your Visualization.)
For the “Regional Map” view, "Configure Menus" will include:
- Aggregate By: Determines what to base the region (i.e. state/province) shading on. This is normally set to "Number of Items" by default, in which case Gist will sum the number of times a particular region name occurs. If you have a Number Field that you would prefer to aggregate by (for example population), set the default to that Field.
The “Mapping” tab allows you to specify what fields in your data set need to be mapped. The “Mapping” tab includes two settings:
- Region: Select a world region that your data describes (i.e. Europe, Asia, China, etc).
- Region Data Field: Select the Field in your Dataset that contains the names of the regions to be mapped (e.g Florida).
Clicking on the Region control will open a list of available regions to select.
Clicking on the Region Data Field control will open a list of available fields in your Dataset. Note: Only fields with matching region names would produce a map.
The “Visuals” tab allows you to choose the color scheme and scale for your Visualization:
- Color scheme
- Use Logarithmic Scale
Color scheme options range from monochrome (shades of a single color) to diverging (interpolation between 2 colors).
Example of monochrome color scheme.
Example of diverging color scheme.
“Use Logarithmic Scale” allows you to exaggerate the color differences between regions when your Dataset values differ greatly in magnitude.
The "Descriptions" tab finally lets you add a description and meta-description to your View. The description will appear at the top of the View and is a good way of orienting users to what they can hope to take away from the View. The meta-description lets you add a write-up of the key takeaways from your chart for screen readers.
Once your Visualization is complete click "Done" to return to the "Views" tab in the main menu of your Visualization. Make sure to click "Save" on the next screen to save your edits, or click "Revert" to undo.