How to get Filled Map with Cities and State Slicer

Question

Hello,

I am trying to create a filled map with data on our sales for specific regions. The example I am working with has Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri but they only service half of Iowa and Illinois, while other regions cover the rest.

I am trying to show the sales for this region in these 3 states, and show which cities are having the highest sales. I added a slicer for states so I can filter down to each to see the sales amount, but when I do this it does not show the amounts by city.

For example, when I tried the same report but filtered by county, it would show which counties had the most sales compared to others.

I have included an image of the way the map is formatting compared to how I was hoping I could get it to look. Just was not sure if it did not have the capability to do it with city?

Answer 1

Hi Jaylin,

For your concern, I'm afraid that the current structure of Excel Filled Map cannot meet your expectations.

In the top map, Excel is only shading Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri as whole state areas, while the legend lists the city names. In this chart, Excel is using the State field as the geographic boundary and the City field as a category/legend field. A Filled Map is designed to compare values or categories across geographic regions such as countries, states, counties, or postal codes.

That is why your county version works better: counties have mappable filled boundaries, so Excel can shade each county by sales. Cities, however, usually do not work the same way in Excel’s standard Filled Map because Excel is not drawing city boundary polygons in the way it draws counties or states. It may recognize city names as geography values, but the Filled Map visual is not ideal for showing city-level sales as separate filled areas. That also means that the standard Filled map charts are limited to high-level geographic details and do not support latitude/longitude or street-address style mapping.

I understand this may not be the answer you were hoping for. As a forum moderator, I work independently of the product team, I don't have visibility into internal design decisions or the ability to adjust how the feature behaves. I can only help confirm how the product currently works and make sure you have clear information.

That said, if this is affecting your workflow, or if you think this is an area that should be improved, I sincerely encourage you to submit suggestions directly to the team through the official Excel feedback community: Excel · Community. The product team doesn't actively monitor issues on this forum, so submitting feedback through official channels ensures that your input is truly communicated to them.

Once you've submitted your feedback, feel free to share the link here in the comments. I’ll be happy to upvote it to help bring more visibility.

I greatly appreciate your precious time for bringing up this concern. I'm sure there are other users who have been in the same situation but don't know where to share their feedback, so hopefully you will upvote this post if you can. This will help pin the post to the top, making it easier for other users who may be experiencing the same issue to find your post, understand the context, and support your feedback. Your voice matters, and collective feedback is one of the most effective ways to drive meaningful improvement.

While I can't change the product's design, please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions about its current functionality.

Thank you for your kindness and contributions to the forum.

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