I thought I’d put together a blog post comparing Geo Maps and Google Maps and looking at the advantages and disadvantages of both when displaying geographic data in Google Data Studio.

Below are two world maps. The one on the left is a Geo Map and the one on the right is a Google Map.

I’ll take a look at the pros and cons of each type of map and how you can use them to show data in your reports.

Advantages of Geo Maps in Data Studio

Geo Maps were the first and for a long time only type of maps you could use in Data Studio.

Drilling down into Regions and Cities

You can display data as bubbles or as a Choropleth map depending on the geographic data type.

Below is an example of a Choropleth map where the number of users by Country is expressed by the shade of blue.

Below is a geo map showing Cities as bubbles on a World Map.

Geo maps also allow you to Drill Down into smaller geographic areas. For example below we have our geo map with the ability to drill down from Continent > Sub Continent > Country > Region < Town/City.

Be aware that while these geographic categories are available for Google Analytics data they are unlikely to work for other data sources.

For example if we click on Canada on the map and click to drill down we see a breakdown of Users by Province as shown below.

For the United States we are able to select individual States and zoom into the cities in those states. For example below I’ve selected Texas.

I can then zoom in to see the number of Users from each city within Texas as shown below.

However this feature is only available for US states at the time of writing. It’s not possible to drill down into states / provinces in other countries.

If you are using Google Analytics data, it is possible to drill down and zoom in to specific regions as defined in Google Analytics.

For example using the Drill Up / Drill Down arrows I’ve selected only ‘Western Europe’ in the Google Analytics data.

In the screenshot below I’ve selected the sub continent category ‘Western Europe’ and am able to zoom in to see the performance of small countries that it would be impossible to see on the standard geo map.

Switching Metrics using Optional Metrics

Another advantage to using Geo Maps over Google Maps is that at the time of writing they are able to use Optional Metrics while Google Maps are not.

Below we have a Geo Map with the default metric of Users. We have optional metrics including Bounce Rate.

While interacting with the Data Studio report I can quickly and easily switch the map metric to display Bounce Rate instead of Users.

I’ll now move on to talking about some of the advantages of using Google Maps in Data Studio at the time of writing.

Geo Maps are visible in Embedded Reports

Below is a screenshot of an embedded Data Studio report. On the left is a Geo Map and on the right is a Google Map.

We can see that when a report is embedded a Google Map is not visible. You need to open the report in Data Studio to be able to view and interact with it. At the time of writing it is not possible to view embedded Google Maps and although it says “Google Maps cannot yet be displayed in embedded reports” so perhaps there is hope that this will change in the future.

Therefore for the time being a Geo Map makes more sense if your report is going to be viewed as an embedded report most of the time.

Advantages of Google Maps in Data Studio

I’ll now run down some of the disadvantages and limitations of using geo maps when compared to Google Maps.

Displaying Data as Bubbles or Filled Areas

As of August 2020 you can now display data as a filled area in your Google Map. This is useful if you want to show data by Country or Region. Shown below is a map of the US and Canada displaying data by Province / State.

Being able to zoom in with greater detail

At this level we get a similar view of bubbles within Vietnam. Let’s say we need to zoom in and take a closer look at the numbers of specific cities.

With the Google Map on the left we can zoom right in to Ho Chi Minh City. With the Geo Map on the right we are left at the same zoom level. This means that while we can see the number of users within the big cities its very difficult to see the number of users in smaller towns.

Creating Custom Map Styles for your Maps

An advantage of using Google Maps is being able to create unique and customized styles for your maps. I wrote a blog post that goes into more detail on this; How to create Custom Google Map Styles in Google Data Studio.

But the advantage of using Google Maps is that you can customize the colours of the map to suit your visualization colour palette. Below is an example of some of the standard themes that are available for Google Maps that can be further customized.

For example here is a customized map of South Africa showing crime data created using the custom stylings option in Google Data Studio.

Being able to alternate between the dashboard and the full screen Google Map

When comparing Geo Maps and Google Maps a big advantage for Google Maps is the ability to alternate between viewing your dashboard and exploring the map in full screen.

Simple click the full screen expander button in the top right hand corner of the map.

This will allow you to explore the map in full screen. This allows you to include a Google Map in a relatively small area on your report as those wanting to explore the map in detail can simply open it in full screen mode as shown below.

Include up to 10,000 bubbles on a Google Map

So according to Google’s documentation for Geo Maps in Data Studio, Geo Maps display the first 5000 rows of data.

The maximum number of data points displayed on a Google Map is 10,000 (provided it is latitude, longitude data type). Therefore Google Maps have an advantage when it comes to display large numbers of points on a map.

The ability to view Satellite and Street View images of Locations

So for example let’s say we had a list of specific locations mapped out in Data Studio. And we wanted to be able to view what these places look like on the ground. Using a Google Map we can switch from the default map style to a satellite view and also to a street view.

Below in the top left photo we have the location of a KFC branch. In the top right photo I’ve changed the map view from Map to Satellite. And in the image below I’ve switched to Street View. Notice that the orange circle marking the location of the store is still visible while exploring the map in street view.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post about Comparing Geo Maps and Google Maps and have a better idea about the pros and cons and differences between the two map types in Data Studio!

My Other Blog Posts

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. You might like my other blog posts.