Work with maps

Maps put your numbers on real geography, shading states and countries or plotting cities as sized, colored dots, so you see where you win and where you lose at a glance.

16 min readUpdated November 3, 2026

Note: Summary: Maps put your numbers on real geography, shading states and countries or plotting cities as sized, colored dots, so you see where you win and where you lose at a glance.

A map answers "where?" before anyone reads a number. Golden turns any geographic field (a state, a country, a city, a ZIP code) into a map with no lookup tables and no coordinates to find.

There are three kinds: a Filled map that shades whole regions, a Shape map that drops a mark on each place, and a Density map that shows where activity clusters.

The Regional Profit Review dashboard with a filled map of profit by state: California and New York deep blue, Texas deep red, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois light red, and a Profit legend running from -$25,729.36 to $76,381.39

When to use a map

The regional profit review. Your VP of Sales wants to know which states make money and which lose it. A filled map with a diverging scale paints Texas red and California blue before anyone opens a spreadsheet.
Where the big accounts are. A sales ops lead plots every city as a dot, sized by sales and colored by profit. The giant red dot in a city full of revenue is the conversation for Monday.
Territory planning. Before you redraw territories, a density map shows where orders actually cluster, not where you assumed they did.
The country rollup. A finance team with revenue in 30 countries shades each one by growth and sees the outliers in one look.

If your data has a place in it and someone keeps asking "which regions?", it's time for a map.

Make a map

Add a chart to your dashboard (on a blank one, choose Start from a field).
Open the map chart type menu and pick Shape map, Filled map or Density map.
Put a geographic field on Location (State/Province, City, Country/Region, Postal Code). Fields Golden recognizes as places sit under Geographic in the Fields panel, marked with a globe.
Put a measure on Color (and on Size, for a shape map).

The map chart type menu open with Shape map, Filled map (checked) and Density map

Golden names the chart for you ("Sum of profit by state/province"). Click the title to change it.

From chat:

Show profit by state as a filled map

The shelves

Every map has a Location shelf, a Color shelf and a Tooltip shelf. A shape map adds Size.

The map's shelves: State(State/Province) on Location, Sum(Profit) on Color, an empty Tooltip shelf and the Options button

Shelf	What it does
Location	Where each mark goes. Takes geographic fields only: country, state, county, metro, city, ZIP, or latitude and longitude.
Color	Shades each region or mark. On a filled or shape map it takes a measure (a color scale) or a dimension (one color per category). A density map takes a measure only.
Size	Shape map only. Sizes each dot by a measure, so the biggest numbers are the biggest dots.
Tooltip	Extra fields to show when someone hovers a region or a dot.

The three kinds of map

Filled map

A filled map shades whole regions by value. It's the right pick when the region itself is the unit: states, countries, counties.

Golden fills US states, US counties, US metro areas, US ZIP codes, countries, and states or provinces worldwide. Hover any region to see its value.

Hovering Texas on the filled map shows a tooltip: State/Province: Texas, Profit: -$25,729.36, Click for actions

Shape map

A shape map puts a mark on each place. Use it for cities, stores or anything that's a point rather than an area, and when you want two measures at once: one on Size, one on Color.

Density map

A density map shows where your rows cluster. Put a measure on Color to weight each place by it, so a city with $1M in sales glows hotter than one with $10K. Golden computes it over your full dataset, not a sample.

Color

Click Color on the shelf to open Color encoding.

Option	What it does
Scale	Continuous runs from low to high in one hue. Diverging runs from one color through a neutral middle to another.
Color scale	Pick a preset (like Red-Blue), or set your own under Custom colors.
Reverse colors	Flips the scale, for measures where low is good (cost, returns, churn).
Stepped color	Bands the scale into distinct steps instead of a smooth blend.
Custom colors	Set the Low and High colors (plus Mid on a diverging scale).
Midpoint value	Diverging only. Where the neutral middle sits. Auto picks it for you; type 0 to split losses from gains.
Opacity	How solid the fill is.
Show legend	Shows the color legend on the map, at the Position you choose.

For profit, use Diverging with the midpoint at 0. Every money-losing region turns red and every profitable one turns blue, which is exactly the question your exec team is asking.

Map options

Select the map and click Options to open the map's options.

Option	What it does
Data labels	Filled map only. Writes each region's value on the map.
Location country	Places ambiguous locations in this country. Leave it on Automatic to use the data's own context (ZIP codes default to the US).
Location state / province	Narrows ambiguous places further, to one state or province.
Map style	The basemap: Light, Dark, Streets or Satellite.
Marker size	How big the dots are, from 2 to 24px.
Marker opacity	How solid the dots are, from 10% to 100%.
Reverse colors	Flips the color scale.
Show location count	Shows how many locations the map plotted.
Show navigator	Shows the drill navigator in the map's corner.
Show map controls	Shows the zoom and reset buttons.
Show color legend	Shows the color legend.

Tip: City names repeat. There's a Springfield in a dozen states and a Paris in Texas. If dots land in the wrong place, set Location country (and Location state / province if your data is all one state), or put State on Location next to City so Golden has the context.

Moving around the map

Drag to pan and scroll to zoom, or use Zoom in and Zoom out in the corner. Reset map view frames all your data again. Whenever the map draws, it frames its own marks, so a map of 3 states opens on those 3 states.

Do it from chat

Chat can build maps and change everything above. Ask the way you'd ask an analyst.

Build

Show profit by state as a filled map

Plot sales by city on a map, sized by sales and colored by profit

Show where orders cluster as a density map

Color

Use a red to blue diverging scale for profit, centered on zero

Reverse the colors

Style

Use a satellite map

Make the map dark

Make the dots smaller and more transparent

Place things right

These cities are all in the United States

Our locations are all in Georgia

A few things chat does on purpose:

It won't zoom or center the map. A map always frames its own marks. To show less ground, ask chat to filter what the map plots ("only show the West region").
It won't highlight members on a map. "Make Texas stand out" works on a bar chart; on a map chat tells you it can't, and why.
ZIP codes default to the US only when nothing else in your data says otherwise.

Viewers get a live map. They can pan, zoom, hover any region for its tooltip and hit Reset map view to get back.
Your color, style and legend carry into the published dashboard, exactly as you set them.
Dashboard filters apply. Filter to one region and the map redraws and reframes around what's left.

FAQ

Which geographies can a filled map shade? US states, US counties, US metro areas, US ZIP codes, countries, and states or provinces worldwide. For anything else, use a shape map.

My dots landed in the wrong country. What happened? The place name exists in more than one country. Set Location country under Options, or add State or Country to the Location shelf next to City.

Should I use a filled map or a shape map? Filled when the region is the unit (states, countries). Shape when the thing is a point (cities, stores) or when you want two measures, one on size and one on color.

Can I color a map by a category instead of a number? Yes, on a filled or shape map. Put a dimension like Region or Segment on Color and each value gets its own color. A density map needs a measure.

Why doesn't chat zoom in when I ask? There's no saved zoom. The map always frames its own data. Filter to the places you want and the map frames those.