Overview
A Tree Map renders hierarchical data as nested rectangles. Each rectangle’s area is proportional to its Measure value; its shade reflects the value’s position within the configured Min/Max shade gradient. Outer rectangles group by the first Dimension; inner rectangles subdivide each group by the second Dimension. Tree Maps fit Dashboards where the analytical story is part-to-whole across two categorical levels — region by country, category by product, department by team — and where both rectangle area and shade contribute to the visual reading.
Tree Maps are authored from Lens → Design → Chart Designer → Visualization → Tree Map. The Properties panel exposes seven groups; the Columns tab exposes per-column settings differing by column role (Measure vs. Dimension).
When to use it
- Part-to-whole hierarchical analysis — what proportion of the total comes from each region, broken down by country within each region.
- Two-level categorical breakdowns where both groupings carry meaning.
- Dashboards where visual density matters — Tree Maps pack a lot of categorical detail into a compact area.
Properties tab
The Properties panel exposes seven groups. Title, Tooltip Options, Cumulative Data, Randomized Color, Highlight On Click and Adhoc Report are inherited from Bar Chart. Map Properties are Tree Map–specific.
Map Properties (Tree Map–specific)
| Font Family | Typeface used for the labels rendered inside each rectangle (Dimension values and Measure values). |
| Font Size | Font size of the labels. |
| Font Weight | Font weight of the labels. |
| Tree Map Min Shade | The lightest color in the rectangle shade gradient. Applied to rectangles representing the lowest Measure values. |
| Tree Map Max Shade | The darkest color in the gradient. Applied to the highest Measure values. Intermediate values interpolate between Min and Max Shade. |
Inherited groups
| Title | Chart title configuration. Inherited from Bar Chart. | Bar Chart PD → Properties tab |
| Tooltip Options | Tooltip configuration shown on hover. Inherited from Bar Chart. | Bar Chart PD → Properties tab |
| Cumulative Data | Cumulative-display toggle. Inherited from Bar Chart. | Bar Chart PD → Properties tab |
| Randomized Color | Randomizes colors. Inherited from Bar Chart. | Bar Chart PD → Properties tab |
| Adhoc Report | Adhoc report configuration. Inherited from Bar Chart. | Bar Chart PD → Properties tab |
Columns tab
Per-column settings on the Columns tab differ by column role.
Measure column settings
| Display Name | Label used when the column appears in the chart. Defaults to the source column name. |
| Content Properties | Content-level formatting configuration for the measure columns. |
| Data Format | Number formatting applied to the displayed value — currency, decimal places, thousands separator, percentage. |
| Drilldown | Drilldown configuration that lets a viewer click a rectangle to navigate to a different chart or report scoped to the clicked context. |
| Column Settings | Additional per-column configuration (Hide column, Hide from output). |
| Colors | Color configuration specific to the Measure on Tree Map. |
Dimension column settings
| Groups | Categorical grouping of Dimension values into named buckets. Dimension-specific; not exposed on Measure columns. |
| Display Name | Label used when the Dimension appears in chart contexts. |
| Content Properties | Content-level formatting configuration for the dimension columns |
| Drilldown | Drilldown configuration for the Dimension. |
| Column Settings | Additional per-column configuration. |
Key behaviors
Two-level hierarchy from Dimension order. The first Dimension dropped into the Dimension slot becomes the outer rectangles (parent grouping); the second Dimension becomes the inner rectangles (child subdivision within each parent). The Dimension order in the slot determines the hierarchy — swap the order to invert which Dimension is parent and which is child.
Area encodes Measure value. Each rectangle’s area is proportional to its Measure value relative to the parent group. Within an outer rectangle, child rectangles sum to fill the parent’s area; across the whole Tree Map, all rectangles together represent the dataset’s total Measure.Shade encodes Measure position in gradient. Rectangles are filled along a color gradient running from Tree Map Min Shade (lowest value) to Tree Map Max Shade (highest value). This means the Measure value is encoded twice — once as area, once as shade. The two encodings reinforce each other on a single-Measure Tree Map.