Incorrect UK counties in Bing Maps for Power BI and Excel

Question

Incorrect UK counties in Bing Maps for Power BI and Excel

Jim Blair 0

The UK counties in Bing Maps for Excel and Power BI are not accurate, and there are multiple issues. This has been reported as far back as 2012.

If you create an Excel table with three columns: Country (which must be UK), County, and Units, and create a map from this data, it is far more accurate than creating a Geography table. Nonetheless, there are still gaps.

e.g. Leicester, Leicestershire, Cumbria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, York.

Do you know if there are any plans to fix this?

To fill the gaps manually, it would be useful if Microsoft provided a list of the names they use, e.g., York. I have tried mapping to York, City of York and York Town with no success, but it's just guesswork without a definitive list.

Many thanks.

Jiajing Hua 18,175 Reputation points Moderator

2025-03-03T08:11:54.2166667+00:00

Hi @Jim Blair

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you, this needs to wait for Microsoft to fix it.

But for a variety of reasons, the forum cannot promise you the planned features, their priorities, or the dates that we expect these features to be released.

Thanks for your understanding.
Adrian Thorne 0 Reputation points

2026-04-26T16:43:58.13+00:00

I have found that Cumbria is split into "Cumberland" and "Westmorland and Furness". York seems to work if you add it as "York, England". I'm still struggling with "Leicester" and "Stoke-on-Trent". If anyone has the right form of words for these two then I have a complete map of England at least.
Shubham Singh 85 Reputation points

2026-04-28T07:18:44.16+00:00
This is actually a known and fairly common issue, and it’s usually not a Power BI bug in the report itself. Power BI uses Bing Maps for its built‑in map visuals, and the UK “county” names and boundaries pulled from Bing Maps don’t always match what people expect. The main culprit here is that Bing Maps relies on administrative and historic boundary data, not always the current ceremonial or commonly used counties in the UK.

The only reliable way that I can think of to fix incorrect UK county names and boundaries in Power BI is to stop using Bing Maps for counties and instead use a Shape Map with an official UK county boundary file. This completely avoids Bing Maps’ outdated or mismatched county data.

I have recorded the steps below for ease to follow:

Get an official UK counties TopoJSON file - Download a UK counties boundary file from a trusted source such as: UK government open data (ONS or ONS Open Geography Portal) or A reputable GIS data provider. Make sure that file format is TopoJSON

Enable Shape Map in Power BI - Go to Power Bi Desktop and File → Options and settings → Options. Select Preview features and enable Shape map visual.

Add Shape Map Visual - Insert a Shape Map visual onto your report. In the Shape Map settings, choose Add map and Load the UK counties TopoJSON file you downloaded

You must ensure that the county names in your dataset exactly match the county names defined in the TopoJSON file. If the names do not align, the map will not render the data correctly. If needed, you should create a mapping column in Power Query to standardize the names, for example by correcting spelling differences, removing extra spaces, or replacing historic or alternative county names with the ones used in the TopoJSON file. Once the names are aligned, place the county name field into the Location field of the Shape Map visual and add your measure, such as population, sales, or counts, into the Values field.

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Jiajing Hua 18,175 Reputation points Moderator

2025-03-03T08:11:54.2166667+00:00

Hi @Jim Blair

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you, this needs to wait for Microsoft to fix it.

But for a variety of reasons, the forum cannot promise you the planned features, their priorities, or the dates that we expect these features to be released.

Thanks for your understanding.
Adrian Thorne 0 Reputation points

2026-04-26T16:43:58.13+00:00

I have found that Cumbria is split into "Cumberland" and "Westmorland and Furness". York seems to work if you add it as "York, England". I'm still struggling with "Leicester" and "Stoke-on-Trent". If anyone has the right form of words for these two then I have a complete map of England at least.

Answer 1

Charlie B 0

Battled with this last year and think I eventually got them all - list below. There was some real guessing involved though. The ones where the country is blank only seem to work without adding a country in. If you add the country then they stop working - very weird. Ultimately this seems to work though and covers all the map areas. Hope that helps.

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Incorrect UK counties in Bing Maps for Power BI and Excel

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