Category: mapping

We all know that Google Sheets is great for storing and analyzing data. Some spreadsheets can contain geographic location information such as addresses or latitude and longitude coordinates. These can show sales stats, leads, or even wedding planning information.

There are plenty of ways Excel’s web-based competitor can help you display key location details. For example, you can sort a sheet of cities or states from A to Z, use conditional formatting to highlight duplicate entries, or summarize columns with pivot tables.

While many of these methods can help you visualize your location data, only a map offers the level of insight you’re likely looking for. The good news is you can make a Google Sheets map (what they call a geo chart)— all without leaving the platform.

Geo Chart Your Country, Continent, or Region Data

You no doubt had to make a few bar graphs or charts in grade school. However, there are more charts than just the bar variety. Google Sheets recognizes eight types of charts with 32 options in total, including two geo charts, one with markers and one without.

A geo chart

A geo chart with markers

You can use these two types of geo charts to create maps from your data in Google Sheets. Both note that these only work with:

• latitude and longitude
• regional data (continents, countries, or states)

Using a spreadsheet that contains sales data by country, here’s how to create a geo chart:

• Open your spreadsheet in Google Sheets
• Format your data
• First column: continents, countries, states, or latitude
• Second column: numeric data or longitude
• Select the cells you want to include on your geo chart
• Click Insert > Chart
• Under Chart type, scroll until you see the two Map options and make your pick. Note that for the map with markers, the data for each location defines marker size.

With the basics of your geo chart set, you can now customize your map.

Customize Your Geo Chart with Colors

Whether it’s country sales or an inmate population, ensure your map chart highlights your data with customizations.

Double-click your geo chart or select the three dots in the upper right corner of your chart and click Edit chart. Then, choose the Customize tab.

You can adjust your Chart style, including Background color, Chart border color, and Font.

Geo chart Region: Africa

You can also change your chart’s Geo elements, like the Region. The World view is the default. Choosing a Region will zoom in on that location in the geo chart, focusing on the data you want to see most.

Also within the Geo dropdown, you can adjust the color of the Min, Max, and Mid data values. By default, the Max data ($39,729 in sales) for country sales is denoted in green, while Min sales ($16,865) is in red.

This may be a great way to color-code sales data, but it may not be appropriate for other datasets. For example, you might want different color assignments on a geo chart of countries with the highest prison populations.

Navigating away from the Customize tab, you can resize your geo chart by dragging the edges in or out. Then, download or publish your chart to share on your website.

Creating, customizing, and sharing a geo chart in Google Sheets is simple enough and you have the benefit of remaining on the same platform as your data, but there are some downsides to keep in mind.

Cons of Map Charts In Google Sheets

The limitation of country, continent, or region data is the main drawback of geo charts. You’re out of luck if the data you want to display contains addresses, cities, states, or ZIP codes.

Another drawback is that, even if the locations associated with your data fit into Google Sheets’ mold, the platform can only show numeric data. This excludes numerous datasets with textual information.

Beyond that, a geo chart is a pretty basic map — and this isn’t just a Google Sheets issue. Even in Excel, there’s no heat map function or other insight essentials. Luckily, there’s an alternative that’s as easy as copy and paste.

Use a Tool Intended for Mapping

Google Sheets and other spreadsheet tools are for storing data and basic analysis — not for mapping. Instead, use tools dedicated to map-making.

There are many such tools out there, as we outlined in Introduction to Map Making on the Web: ArcGIS and other desktop GIS software, the Google Maps API, and web-based mapping tools such as BatchGeo.

Not only can BatchGeo map country, continent, and region data like Google Sheets, it can also identify common landmarks, addresses, cities, and ZIP codes. Check out the same country sales data we used in Google Sheets geo charts on our map below:

View Country sales in a full screen map

Along with more flexible location mapping, your numeric and textual data will be available for grouping. This is in addition to the many more ways you can get insights — including the ability to visualize the geographic density of your data with a heat map.

Get started with your own map today at batchgeo.com.

You know BatchGeo as the fastest, easiest way to visualize your data on a map. Many of your favorite features, such as map data groups, are automatic.

Yet there are a few more tricks to get the most out of your data, specifically, the stuff that shows up within the Marker box that appears when someone clicks a place marker. This is where anyone using your map can get additional information about each location. You can set a title, re-order data, add images, and more.

There are even a few additional tricks that go beyond the Marker box to ensure your map grabs attention. Once you master these more advanced options, you’ll be well on your way to sharing your data with more and more users.

Maximize Your Map: Advanced Marker Box Customization

The Marker box, often underutilized, can elevate your map from informative to exceptional in the eyes of your users. So let’s take a look at five Marker box fields, from bold titles to supplemental links, all of which you can field under “Show Advanced Options” on your BatchGeo map.

1. Catch the Eye of Your Users by Bolding Important Data

Your BatchGeo map displays a lot of information. Ensure the most important pieces stand out from the rest with this no-code way to designate one of your spreadsheet columns as the “Title.” Doing so will list the data in bold at the top of each Marker box.

BatchGeo may have already intuitively selected a “Title” field for you. Many times that will be what you want, though you can always change this to be another column of your spreadsheet you feel is more descriptive.

To adjust this, when creating or editing your map, hit “Set Options” to reveal your Marker box preview along with “Basic options.” Then opt to “Show Advanced Options.” The first in the list at the left is the “Title” option, which allows you to select any field, including location data.

2. Control What Users See with Marker Description Options

Underneath the “Title” field, there’s a dropdown for “Marker Description.” This is yet another opportunity to control what you want to display in your Marker box—and what you don’t.

By default, “All Columns” may be selected. As a result, every column of your spreadsheet that you input into BatchGeo will be shown in the Marker box. However, if you’d rather display only one field (other than the “Title,” if one has selected or the location), you can do so within “Advanced options” as opposed to deleting information from your spreadsheet.

Choose “Set Options” to reveal your Marker box preview along with “Basic options.” Click “Show Advanced Options,” then use the dropdown underneath “Marker Description” to select what should appear in your Marker box.

3. You Choose the Order of Your Data

BatchGeo intuits the order of your data from your spreadsheet. Therefore, you have complete control over the order your data appears in the Marker box by changing the order within your spreadsheet.

The left-most columns will display first within the Marker box and the right-most columns will show last. Of course, you can catapult one field to the front by setting it as your title, and, seeing as this is a map, your location data will always appear right below your title. But the other field ordering will follow the spreadsheet.

To re-order your data, return to your spreadsheet. If you no longer have the spreadsheet, you can copy from BatchGeo. While editing your map, click into the map data and copy with Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on Mac). Then open an empty spreadsheet and paste with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac).

Choose the spot where you want to move your data and highlight and drag an entire column, or insert a new column and use Cut (Ctrl+X or Cmd+X on Mac) and paste. When your data is in the desired order, add it back into your existing BatchGeo map through the map data box.

4. Add an Image for Every Location

More than just text, your Marker box can also display an image. To add images to your map, you’ll need to add a column to your spreadsheet with full URLs to web images. A full URL starts with the http:// or https:// and continues to include the domain name and path to an image file. For example, http://i.imgur.com/pY3JZsH.jpg is a full URL. You’ll need to use your own image host, such as Dropbox, or point to someone else’s image with permission.

Once you have a column in your spreadsheet containing URLs to images, you can “Set Options,” then “Show Advanced Options” to reveal the “Image URL” drop-down. Select your spreadsheet’s image column and the Marker box preview will show you how the first item looks with your image.

5. Include Supplemental Data with Links

Similar to the image field, you can also create a hyperlink to supplemental data, such as a website with more information about a location. Again, this will need to be a full URL added to an additional column in your spreadsheet. This can be a web page that you control or another, such as an official website or visitor review page. Just make sure it’s the full URL, including http:// or https://, as described in the image step.

The URL field under “Advanced options” defaults to a Google Maps link, but you can make it any page on the Internet. Select the name of the column where you have the web URL in your spreadsheet and it will appear one of two places: if you have a title selected, it will now be clickable; otherwise, the link will display at the bottom of the Marker box.

4 More Tricks to Ensure Your Map Grabs Attention

The first five ways of making your map stand out were centered on the Marker box. But we didn’t want to leave out these four additional tips just because they were unrelated, although this first one is another way to see the same data.

6. Scroll to Reveal Your List

Every map with 500 or fewer locations comes complete with a list of every location for easy scrolling and searching. It works in full map view, as well as with your embedded maps, which we’ll go over a bit later in this post. With your mouse cursor over any portion of the map, scroll the page with the keyboard, scroll wheel, or other mechanism. You have now revealed the entire list of locations.

Everything available within the Marker box is also displayed in this list. You can use your browser’s built-in Find option (usually Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on Mac) to search for keywords within the data, or just browse the list, which is displayed in your spreadsheet order. If you’re using the grouping feature, the list will be constrained to whatever is visible on the map. Even better, any map labels are also included in the list and each item is clickable, opening up the Marker box to show the location on the map.

Moreover, this list can be enabled or disabled in the “Render Method” section when editing your map. Loading the “Map Only” is a little faster, but the “Map + Data” method gives you this searchable, scrollable list.

7. Customize Your Map’s URL

This tip might seem simple, but customizing the link to your map can certainly make an impact—even if it’s only to help you remember it! Perhaps more importantly, a custom URL makes it easier for other users to remember your map, too.

Stary by navigating to the Editing page by right-clicking your map and hitting “Edit Map.” Next, look for your “Map Address.” Click into the editable box and type a new URL, with “-” in the middle of any words, such as “art-photos.” Right below the “Map Address,” you’ll see the “Description.”

8. Provide Even More Information in the Description

Take your map another step further by providing users with more info in the “Description.” Not to be confused with “Marker Description,” this “Description” appears below your map and gives users more info, or, better yet, a call to action to visit your website.

To add a link to your website in your map, right-click your map and select “Edit Map”. Copy and paste the following HTML into the “Description,” filling in the missing info as you go:

<p class="has-line-data" data-line-start="0" data-line-end="1">Visit <a href="YOUR WEBSITE LINK HERE">YOUR WEBSITE NAME HERE</a> for more information.</p>

Now, all you have to do is “Save” your map. Speaking of websites…

9. Show Off Your Map with an Embed

You’ve ensured that your map will stand out, so why not show off your efforts by embedding it on your website.

While BatchGeo maps are hosted on our servers, they can also appear seamlessly on your website via the embed code we’ve automatically generated for you.

To find it, right-click your map and select “Edit Map.” Scroll down until you spot “Embed Code.” Copy and paste the it into the HTML of your website editor. For example, if you’re using WordPress, choose a “Custom HTML” block and paste it there.

The resulting embed will look something like this:

View Photos in a full screen map

Of course, there are more than 9 ways to make your map stand out with BatchGeo.

Pro users can do even more, including using advanced data selection tools for things like route optimization. Check out BatchGeo Pro today.

Climate change has many effects, from extreme weather events to habitat displacement and rising sea levels. As the Earth’s temperature rises, polar ice caps and glaciers melt, contributing to the increased volume of water in the world’s oceans. This phenomenon leads to the gradual encroachment of seawater onto coastal areas, posing a significant threat to numerous cities and communities worldwide.

This article examines which US locations are the most affected by rising sea levels. It starts by outlining the 10 cities with over half of their housing at risk.

View U.S. Cities Most Impacted By Sea Level Rise in a full screen map

Rising sea levels have impacted all 118 US cities on the map. Yet some are more affected than others, especially the top 10 with over half of their housing at risk:

• Miramar, FL
• Pembroke Pines, FL
• Davie , FL
• Hialeah, FL
• Fort Lauderdale, FL
• Miami Gardens, FL
• Hollywood, FL
• Norfolk, VA
• Hampton, VA
• Charleston, SC

Miramar, Florida claims the top spot, with 95.2% of its housing units in vulnerable areas. Miramar is closely followed by Pembroke Pines, Davie, and Hialeah, all in Florida, with 94.5%, 91.8%, and 90.7%, respectively.

Also in Florida, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Gardens, and Hollywood face considerable risk. Cities beyond Florida are also experiencing increased vulnerability (Norfolk, VA, Hampton, VA, and Charleston, SC), though Florida remains the most at-risk state.

Change in Houses at Risk between 2019 & 2020

To give a clearer picture of housing at risk due to rising sea levels, we next turn to the most significant increases—or decreases—between 2019 and 2020.

City	State	Change in % of houses in risk zones from 2019 to 2020 (%)
Cape Coral	FL	28.5
Davie	FL	27.8
Hialeah	FL	26.2
Norfolk	VA	25
Hampton	VA	19.5
Jersey City	NJ	15.1
Hollywood	FL	14.7
Virginia Beach	VA	12.3
Fort Lauderdale	FL	12.2
Pompano Beach	FL	12.1

In several Florida cities, namely Cape Coral, Davie, Hialeah, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, and Pompano Beach, the percentage increases of risk range from 12.1% to 28.5%. Many of these cities may be familiar, as they also appeared in the top 10.

The only decrease was noted in Bellevue, Washington. In 2019, the city’s share of housing units in risk zones was 0.2%. One year later, in 2020, that share was 0.1%.

The Most Affected States

As you could probably guess after seeing the top 10 and largest changes, Florida is the state where rising sea levels will have the most impact. The list below shows how many cities are affected in the Sunshine State, as well as the next five states that have the most cities affected:

• Florida — 33 cities affected
• California — 26
• Virginia — 9
• Texas — 7
• Massachusetts — 6
• Washington — 5

Beyond having seven cities in the top 10, Florida leads with 33 affected cities concentrated in its southeast region.

California follows Florida, with 26 cities at risk.

And though Virginia, Texas, Massachusetts, and Washington have fewer cities at risk, they’re far from being in the clear.

Visualizing the Density of Affected Cities

It can be difficult to truly understand the impact of rising sea levels in states that have many cities affected. Map markers can overlap, obscuring the view. This is where a heat map can be invaluable—and BatchGeo Pro users have access to exactly that with “Heat View.”

Here’s how to do it:

• Navigate to your map
• Right-click to toggle on “Heat View”

It’s the best way to visualize the density of locations and uncover the story within your data.

Try it for yourself with BatchGeo Pro.