How to add regions as area markers
In Datawrapper locator maps, you can select regions and add them to your list of area markers – without the need to import your own:
As you can see in the GIF above, you can add lots of regions on different administrative levels – like countries, states, counties, or city districts.
This lets you build maps like this one without the need to handle GeoJSONs:
Here's how to add regions as area markers.
How to use this feature
You will encounter two places in the app where you can select regions and add them as area markers:
- In step 1: Add markers, there’s a new toggle “Add region as area marker”.
- In step 2: Design map, we updated the old option “Highlight a region”. So far, you could highlight just one region with this option. Now, selecting a region there will also create an area marker in step 1, and you can add as many as you like.
Before using this feature, you might want to zoom in: On the world map, you’ll only be able to select countries. Once you zoom to a country, you’ll see counties, federal states, and eventually city districts in the list of regions.
Before you commit, we show you a preview of the region you hover over in the region list. That’s especially useful if you’re designing a map about a part of the world you don’t know well.
Once you selected a region with a mouse click, it will appear in the marker list. Here you can adjust it like any other area marker: change the fill color/opacity, stroke color/opacity, add a vignette, etc.
Markers added with “Highlight a region” work as you’re used to: Since we expect that you want your new area markers to not get in the way of rivers, mountains, labels, etc., they come with the setting “Display below map features” turned on:
Left: Area marker below map features. Right: Area marker above map features.
Is there a limit to the regions you can add?
There is: You can add regions through our new feature and/or import GeoJSONs to your locator maps as long as they don’t sum up to 2MB in total.
With this limit, you can add lots of regions (we simplified them nicely) and your maps will load fast once you embed them.