Google Maps reference

Adding Google Maps to your reports gives your viewers a familiar interactive environment where they can explore geographic data. Google Maps in Looker Studio are highly customizable and integrate with any data source that contains valid geo fields.

In this article:

See your data plotted on Google Maps

1. Edit your report.
2. Navigate to the page that will contain the chart.
3. In the toolbar, click  Add a chart.
4. Select one of the preset Google Maps:
   1. Bubble maps show your data as colored circles.
   2. Filled maps show your data as shaded areas.
   3. Heatmaps show your data using a color gradient.
   4. Line maps show your data as lines or paths over a geographic area.
   5. Connection maps shows your data as pairs of points that are connected by a line or an arc.
   6. Combo maps show your data as a combination of a filled map and a bubble map.
5. Click the canvas to add the chart to the report.
6. Use the properties panel on the right to add or change the Location or Geospatial field so your map displays the desired locations.
7. Refer to the following sections for information on configuring the rest of your map.

What you need to use Google Maps in Looker Studio

To add Google Maps to Looker Studio, you'll need a data source with one or more geographic dimensions. Data sources that are based on Google Analytics and Google Ads automatically include fields that you can use, such as Country, City, Region, Metro area, Store location, and so on.

For other data source types, such as Google Sheets or BigQuery, make sure that any geographic fields have the right data type:

1. Edit the data source.
2. Locate the geographic dimension(s) that you want to use in Google Maps.
3. Use the Type menu to select the appropriate Geo field type (Country, City, Region, for example).

Learn more about geographic dimensions.

Configure Google Maps

Configure a bubble map

Configure a filled area map

Configure a heatmap

Configure a line map

Configure a connection map

The connection map lets you visualize your location data as sequences of points that are connected by a line.

This visualization also supports vector graphics and three-dimensional viewing. When the Show in 3D view style setting is enabled and the map is tilted, the line that connects your data points is displayed as an arc. When the Show in 3D view style setting is disabled and the map is tilted, or if the map is not tilted, the line that connects your data points is displayed as a line. Visualizing your data connections in three dimensions may be particularly useful if your data point connections appear to overlap when viewed in two dimensions.

Example

Here's a connection map that depicts flights between US cities. Note how the two-dimensional visualization seems to hide the overlapping connections between cities in Georgia and Florida in the southeast. Tilting the map reveals both connections.

Data properties

Location fields

These dimensions determine the locations and connection sequence for the data points that appear on the map. These fields can be of any data type, as long as Google Maps can geocode the values appropriately. Each dimension's data type should be identical, with the exception that you can connect location values such as City or Country to latitude-longitude coordinates. For example, you can connect City to to latitude-longitude or Country to latitude-longitude, but you cannot connect City to Country. If the location types are incompatible, you'll see an error message:

To add a data point, enter a dimension for Point 1. To connect additional points, click Add dimension and select another dimension. When only Point 1 is specified, the map connects all the values for that dimension. You can connect up to 10 dimensions. The connection map will graph the line between each point sequentially.

For example, say that your US flight data contained data points for stops that were made before the flight arrived at its final destination. Point 1 is the origin city, Point 2 is a layover city, and Point 3 is the destination city. The connection map will connect Point 1 to Point 2 and Point 2 to Point 3 to create one continuous line.

Thickness

(Optional) A metric that determines the relative thickness of the lines on the map. You can adjust the thickness of the lines by using the Style > Connection map Layer thickness slider.

Style properties

Connection map Layer

Thickness slider

Sets the thickness of the lines.

Path accuracy (geodesic)

Geodesic paths represent the shortest distance between two points on a sphere. This setting helps to visualize three-dimensional relationships on a two-dimensional surface. When this setting is enabled, when viewing the map in two dimensions, the connection between two points appears as a curved line. When this setting is disabled, when viewing the map in two dimensions, the connection between two points is displayed as a straight line.

 

Configure a combo map

The combo map enables you to combine the properties of a filled map and a bubble map. When you define the filled map with a dimension and the bubble map with a metric, the two map types are layered on a single chart.

Example

Here’s a combo map that shows countries with their median age depicted as an overlying bubble layer. Median age is represented by bubble size, with larger bubbles corresponding to higher ages. 

The Show in 3D view style property is available in the Background Layer style property for combo maps. When this property is enabled, you can tilt the map perspective manually to emphasize the relative size difference of the bubble heights. Here’s an example of the same map with the Show in 3D view style property enabled:

Data properties

Additional Layer Metric

A metric that determines the overlying layer on the map. 

When the Show in 3D view style property is disabled, this layer appears similar to a standard bubble map, with bubble diameter indicating the metric’s scale. When the Show in 3D view style property is enabled, this layer appears as columns with equal diameters and heights indicating the metric’s scale.

Color dimension

(Optional) A dimension that provides the categories that are used for the color of the geographic data. If you choose this option, the Color metric option is not available, and you cannot specify a color for the Additional Layer style property. 

The Color dimension option requires unique values for each location value. If the Color dimension values are duplicated, you'll see an error message:

To fix this, use a dimension that has a 1:1 relationship with your location dimension.

Color metric

(Optional) A metric that provides the values that are used as a color scale for the geographic data.

Style properties

Additional Layer

Sets the appearance of the Additional Layer metric.

Cylinder slider control	Sets the relative bubble heights, which are apparent when the map is tilted, when the Show in 3D view style property is enabled.
Circle slider control	Sets the relative size of the bubbles.
Opacity	Sets the opacity of the bubbles.
Additional layer color	Sets the color of the bubbles. This setting is not available if you have defined a Color dimension setup property.

Filled Area Layer

Sets the appearance of the Location dimension.

Opacity	Sets the opacity of the filled areas.
Border color	Sets the color of the filled area borders.
Border weight	Sets the thickness of the filled area borders.

Common style properties

Create a custom Google Maps map style

A Google Maps map style lets you customize the visibility and appearance of some map features. You can create a custom Google Maps style in the following ways:

• Import a map style by editing the map’s JSON
• Create and import a map ID

Import a map style using JSON

Create a JSON file for your map with the Google Maps Platform Styling Wizard:

1. In the Style drop-down menu of the Style properties panel, select Edit JSON.
2. Open the Google Maps Platform Styling Wizard and select the Use the legacy JSON styling wizard option from the notification pop-up.
3. Customize the features and theme of your map style. Select Finish.
4. To use this JSON styling, select Copy JSON from the Use JSON styling pop-up dialog.
5. Return to the Import map style dialog in Looker Studio, and paste in the copied JSON in the code block.
6. Select Import.

Your new map style will be applied to your map. It will appear in the Style drop-down menu as Custom.

Create and import a map ID

To create and import a map ID, you must first create a map style and a map ID in the Google Cloud console:

1. In the Style drop-down menu of the Style properties panel, select Edit custom Map ID.
2. In the Google Cloud console, create a new map style.
3. Next create a map IP. Specify a JavaScript map with a vector map type. Copy the map ID.
4.  Associate the map ID with your new map style.
5. Return to the Import map ID dialog in Looker Studio, and paste in the copied map ID in the Paste Map ID here field.
6. Select Import.

Your new map style will be applied to your map. It will appear in the Style drop-down menu with the name that you assigned it in the Google Cloud console.

Tips and limits for working with BigQuery GEOGRAPHY data

Each Google Maps style in Looker Studio can plot up to 1 million points (polygon vertices).

If your query returns more data, the map will show as many polygons as it can within the limit, and you may notice missing polygons.

To reduce the number of points, follow these steps:

• Apply a filter.
  • Filters on a GEOGRAPHY field can select up to 1 GB of data. If your filters return more, you’ll get an error.
• Simplify the polygons in BigQuery using the ST_SIMPLIFY function.

Blended and extracted data sources don’t support GEOGRAPHY fields. To join a table containing your GEOGRAPHY field with another table, perform the join in BigQuery using SQL.

Geo functions

Looker Studio provides a number of geo functions that you use to work with and transform geographic information in your data sources.

To learn more about these functions, view the Looker Studio function list and filter the functions by Geo type.

Limits of Google Maps

• Filled area maps don't support Latitude, Longitude or Address geographic field types.
• For bubble maps, Postal Code can be a U.S. ZIP code (for example, 94043) or an international postal code (example: L4L 9H8). For filled area maps Postal Code can be a U.S. ZIP code.
• Connection maps require points that have compatible geographic field types.
• Maximum data limit:
  • 1 million bubbles for Latitude, Longitude fields.
  • 1 million points (polygon vertices) for Geospatial fields (BigQuery GEOGRAPHY).
  • 3,500 bubbles or filled areas for other geographic field types.
    Increasing a map's data limit can make it load more slowly.
• You can't enable drill down in Google Maps.
• Google Maps doesn't support using optional metrics.
• Location names longer than 500 characters will not be geocoded.

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