Customize a map

Microsoft Fabric Maps provides two levels of customization. Base map settings control the overall appearance and behavior of the map, including the basemap style, map elements, interactive controls, initial view, and localization. These settings apply to the entire map and affect all layers. Layer settings control how individual datasets are rendered, including colors, labels, symbols, clustering, and data-driven styling. Changes to layer settings affect only the selected layer, making it possible to customize each dataset independently.

Prerequisites

• A workspace with a Microsoft Fabric-enabled capacity
• A map with editing permissions and connected data sources, either geoJson files in lakehouse, or KQL databases.

Configure basemap settings

Map settings control the overall appearance and behavior of the map. You can choose a basemap style, configure the initial map view, show or hide map elements such as labels and boundaries, enable interactive controls, and select the display language for map labels.

Changes made to map settings apply to the entire map and affect all layers displayed on it.

There are five different categories of basemap settings:

• Style
• Initial map view
• Map elements
• Controls
• Localization

Style

The map style determines the appearance of the basemap and provides geographic context for the data displayed on the map. Choose from a range of built-in styles, such as road, satellite, grayscale, and high-contrast themes, to match your visualization needs and improve readability for your audience.

Initial map view

The initial map view defines the default location and perspective shown when the map first loads. Configure the starting center point, zoom level, pitch, and rotation to focus viewers on the most relevant geographic area and present the map from the desired viewpoint.

Map elements

Map elements provide extra geographic context by displaying labels, boundaries, roads, and building footprints. You can show or hide individual elements to reduce visual clutter, emphasize specific data layers, or create a map that is tailored to your audience and scenario.

Controls

Map controls add interactive tools that help users navigate and explore the map. Enable controls such as zoom, pitch, compass, and scale to allow viewers to adjust the map view and better understand the data being displayed.

The following image shows a map with the Traffic toggle set to off.

The following image shows a map with the Traffic toggle set to on.

Localization

Localization settings control how geographic information is presented to users. Configure the display language used for map labels and select the map view that determines how country/region and disputed boundary information appears on the map. These settings help ensure the map aligns with the language and regional conventions expected by your audience.

Configure layer settings

Layer settings control how the selected data layer is rendered. The available settings depend on the layer's geometry type and, for point geometry, the selected point layer type. Changes to layer settings affect only the selected layer and don't modify the basemap settings.

Fabric Maps automatically determines the geometry type from the data source. The supported geometry types are point, line, and polygon. Point layers can use one of three layer types: bubble, marker, or heatmap.

There are three groups of layer settings:

• Geometry type settings: Control the appearance and behavior of the selected point, line, or polygon layer.
• Data label settings: Control the text displayed for features in the selected layer.
• Visibility settings: Control when features appear and which properties are available in tooltips.

Geometry type settings

Geometry type settings are specific to the geometry type automatically selected from the input data. The settings available in the Layer settings pane vary by geometry type.

Polygon settings

Polygon layers display areas such as boundaries, zones, or service areas. You can change the fill appearance and optionally apply data-driven colors or 3D extrusion.

Enable extrusion

The following screenshot shows polygon features rendered with 3D extrusion. The extrusion height is based on the configured height source.

Line settings

Line layers display linear features such as roads, paths, routes, and boundaries.

Point settings

Point layers display individual locations or events. Select a point Layer type to choose how the point data is rendered:

• Bubble displays points as circles.
• Marker displays points as built-in icons or custom images.
• Heatmap displays point density using a color gradient.

Bubble layer

Bubble layers display points as circles. Use size, color, opacity, and clustering to show differences between locations or to reduce visual clutter.

Bubble clustering

The following screenshots show bubble points grouped into clusters. Zooming in reveals more granular clusters and individual points.

Marker layer

Marker layers display points as icons. You can use a built-in Fluent icon or a custom image stored in a Lakehouse.

Custom markers

To use a custom image as a marker, browse the files in a Lakehouse and select a supported image format such as SVG, PNG, or JPG. After you select the image, Fabric Maps uses it as the symbol for point data.

Heatmap layer

Heatmap layers use color gradients to show the density of point features. Use intensity, radius, and weight to control how each point contributes to the heatmap.

Apply weight

The following screenshot shows a heatmap in which a numeric property contributes different amounts of intensity to each point.

Clustered heatmap

The following screenshot shows a clustered heatmap with adjusted radius and intensity settings.

Data label settings

Data labels display text from a selected data property directly on the map. To display labels, turn on Enable data labels and then configure the label properties.

The following examples show data labels on point, line, and polygon layers.

Visibility settings

Visibility settings control when a layer is displayed and which data properties are available when users hover over its features.

Data-driven styling for map layers

Data-driven styling lets you control how vector layers are colored based on property values in your dataset, instead of applying one fixed color to all features. This approach helps highlight patterns, trends, and outliers directly on the map.

Data-driven styling is supported for the following layer types:

• Line
• Polygon
• Bubble
• Marker

In the Layer settings pane, configure data-driven color styling through:

• Color by: Selects the data property used for color mapping.
• Style by: Selects the styling mode (Category or Value range).
• Choose a method: Available when Style by is set to Value range and lets you choose Steps or Gradient.

Use data‑driven styling on a map layer

1. Open the map in Edit mode.

2. Select a vector data layer (line, polygon, bubble, or marker).

3. In the Layer settings pane, select Enable data‑driven styling.

   

4. In Color by, select the property that drives color.

5. In Style by, select one of the following options:

   • Category
   • Value range

6. If you select Value range, in Choose a method, select either Steps or Gradient.

Configure value range methods

When you set Style by to Value range, use one of these methods:

• Steps: Divides the numeric domain into discrete buckets, where each bucket gets a distinct color. Use this method when you want explicit class breaks.
• Gradient: Applies a continuous color ramp across the numeric domain. Use this method when you want smooth visual transitions between low and high values.

Rotate markers by data field

Marker layers support data-driven rotation, which is useful for directional data such as heading, bearing, or wind direction.

1. Select a Marker layer.
2. In Rotation, select By data.
3. In Rotation property, select a numeric field.

Use data values in the range 0 to 360 so markers rotate correctly.

Additional behavior and considerations

• The Data layer pane displays a color legend for both Category and Value range styles.
• For Category styling, the legend automatically collapses when more than 10 items are shown; select Show more to expand.
• For Category styling, the legend supports up to 100 categories. Additional values appear as Other.
• For marker layers, data-driven color styling is supported for built-in marker symbols, except when using gradient-based color styling. Custom marker images don't support data-driven color styling.
• Data-driven styling works with other layer features such as filters and labels. Due to a current limitation, legends for PMTiles-based layers don't update when filters are applied and continue to display values for the unfiltered dataset.