How to create an Origin – Destination Map

Origin - Destination Map

About how to create an Origin-Destination Map

This article contains a video tutorial and written steps about How to create an Origin-Destination Map in Tableau, how to build specific types of charts and how to use them in your day-to-day reporting activity.

You can create maps in Tableau Desktop that show paths between origins and destinations. These types of maps are called spider maps, or origin-destination maps.

Spider maps are helpful when working with hubs connecting to many surrounding points. They are an excellent way to show the path between an origin and one or more destination locations.

Step 1 – Ensure your data is prepared adequately

→ In this example, the data source needs to contain both Longitude and Latitude fields for the origins and the destinations. In other words, the data source must contain two longitude fields (one for origin and one for destination), and two latitude fields (one for origin and one for destination)

→ In Tableau Desktop, connect to your data source

Step 2: Create the visualization

We need to create a total of three calculated fields to build our map:

→ A Makepoint Origin Field to map the origin point on a map: MAKEPOINT([Origin LATITUDE],[Origin LONGITUDE])

→ A Makepoint Destination Field to map the destination point on a map: MAKEPOINT([Destination LATITUDE],[Destination LONGITUDE])

→ A Makeline field to create a line between the previously created points:  MAKELINE([MAKEPOINT_Origin],[MAKEPOINT_Destination])

→ Drag the new Makeline calculation onto Detail to view the map

→ (Optional) Change the Line colour and Map layers as desired

Watch the video tutorial here:

 

 

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