How does Tableau know where to plot the locations on a Map view?

Steps involved in Tableau to plot the locations on a Map View

It is almost magical how Tableau easily manages to plot a Map. Let us try to understand how Tableau knows where to plot the locations on a State Map view.

Geographic roles are sometimes automatically assigned to the data.
We can tell that a geographic role has been assigned to the data because the field/column will include a globe icon.

If a geographic role is not automatically assigned, we can manually assign one to the field.
Click on the Data type icon of the field, Geographic Role > Select the correct role e.g.: Postal Code etc.

Step 1: Default Geographic Role assignment for State field

In Tableau, a geographic role associates each value in a field with a latitude and longitude value.

Either when Tableau automatically assigns or when we assign a geographic role to a field, such as City, Tableau creates a Latitude (generated) field and a Longitude (generated) field.

When we assign the correct geographic role to a field, Tableau assigns latitude and longitude values to each location in that field by finding a match that is already built into the installed geocoding database.

This partial table is only for reference purpose to hypothetically show how Tableau performs the internal matching of field values

Map Menu > Edit Locations

Based on these Latitude and Longitude values the States are plotted on a map view in Tableau. This is how Tableau knows where to plot the locations on a map view. In this case it is a State Symbol Map View.

Final State Symbol Map View in Tableau

I hope this article is useful for all Tableau users especially for anyone just starting their Tableau journey!!!