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ebreese's avatar
ebreese
Copper Contributor
Jul 24, 2020

Map function using Australian Local Government Areas

Hi all, trying to use the map chart function with Australian Local Government Areas. Postcodes work fine, as do suburbs, however when trying to use Local Government Areas the map refuses to recognise it as geographical data.

 

I've tried both with setting the data as geographical and tying it to the correct entry, and as just plain text.

 

I've tried including Country/State as additional columns, but still no luck.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Emlyn

  • Hello ebreese , 

    the data that can be processed by filled maps can be very sketchy for locations outside the US. It may well be that the rendering engine does not recognise the boundaries for the local government areas you mention, because it does not fit into the schematic of how Microsoft / Bing breaks things down. They don't have much tolerance for non-US data. If I want to plot NZ data, I have to call the column "regions", if I call it "region" (singular) I get the same error you do.

     

    There's probably not a lot you can do, except to send feedback via the smile icon in the upper right hand corner of the Excel window.

     

    Don't shoot the messenger.

  • Hello ebreese , 

    the data that can be processed by filled maps can be very sketchy for locations outside the US. It may well be that the rendering engine does not recognise the boundaries for the local government areas you mention, because it does not fit into the schematic of how Microsoft / Bing breaks things down. They don't have much tolerance for non-US data. If I want to plot NZ data, I have to call the column "regions", if I call it "region" (singular) I get the same error you do.

     

    There's probably not a lot you can do, except to send feedback via the smile icon in the upper right hand corner of the Excel window.

     

    Don't shoot the messenger.

    • ebreese's avatar
      ebreese
      Copper Contributor

      IngeborgHawighorst 

       

      Thanks Ingeborg, I had a feeling it would be something like this, but hoped maybe there was one weird trick I was missing!

    • robeik's avatar
      robeik
      Copper Contributor
      ebreese IngeborgHawighorst
      I've just run into a similar problem mapping to Western Australian postcode data. It just fails to recognise some postcodes and suburb names. It looks like a great tool, but needs to be polished before it is of any use. I've had a look at the mapping features in R, but no one yet has generated (or made available) vector graphs of LGAs, suburbs, postcodes, or even states.
  • mbowd1905's avatar
    mbowd1905
    Copper Contributor

    ebreese 

     

    Hi Emlyn, I have the same issue, how did you go with your search? I want my Excel Map to pick up LGA data from my spreadsheet but not sure what to call the Header of that column? Any ideas?

     

    Thanks Mike

     

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