PowerBI Azure Map: Strange behaviour with shading over Canada

[chris1579]

Hi,

With the Azure Map visual in PowerBI we are seeing unexpected behaviour with Canada, where instead of the individual islands being outlined (as in every other country) instead the whole outer limit of the country is shaded in. This looks visually horrible; is this a bug, or is there some other way of fixing this? You can see from the below that this is inconsistent, as none of the outlying US islands are covered in a single large shape:

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @chris1579 , Please let us know if your issue is solved. If it is, consider marking the answers that helped 'Accept as Solution', so others with similar queries can find them easily. If not, please share the details.
Thank you.

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @chris1579 , Please let us know if your issue is solved. If it is, consider marking the answers that helped 'Accept as Solution', so others with similar queries can find them easily. If not, please share the details.
Thank you.

[v-hashadapu · Accepted solution]

Hi @chris1579 , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

You’re seeing Canada as a single shaded area in the Azure Map visual in Power BI because Azure Maps treats it as one large multiPolygon, including all its scattered islands, unlike the US, which uses separate shapes for states. This isn’t a bug but a rendering choice. The simplest fix is to use province-level data, add a province column to your data, set it as “Location” (tagged as “Province”), and the map will outline each province cleanly.

For more control, switch to PowerBI’s Shape Map visual, which lets you import custom TopoJSON files to refine boundaries or exclude remote islands. Azure Maps doesn’t support custom files or detailed shape adjustments, so Shape Map or third-party visuals like Mapbox are better for advanced tweaks.

If this helped solve the issue, please consider marking it 'Accept as Solution' so others with similar queries may find it more easily. If not, please share the details, always happy to help.
Thank you.

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @chris1579 , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Please let us know if your issue is solved. If it is, consider marking the answers that helped 'Accept as Solution', so others with similar queries can find them easily. If not, please share the details.
Thank you.

[chris1579]

I asked if there was any way of fixing it and none has been presented, so no. It's not "solved"

[SamWiseOwl]

Many countries with lots of islands don't have the islands included.

Japan, Finland, Norway etc

There are other map types you could consider.

Shape maps , mapbox visual or ArcGis are a little more accurate:

 

 

This wasn't always the case as filled maps used to look like this:

I believe it happend when they switched to TomTom but I am not 100% sure.