Demographics Tab
The Demographics tab (previously called Data Layers) shades the map by data — a heat map (choropleth) of a region coloured by a number, so a slide can show population, income, or your own country- and region-level figures at a glance. It sits on the rail between Markers and Energy.
Two kinds of layer live in one list:
- Census & metro layers — US areas your administrator has made available (county demographics, metro/CBSA areas, census tracts, block groups, ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, congressional districts, tribal lands, and similar). Most are shaded by a numeric field from their own data.
- World figures — the built-in indicator sets: World data (World Bank) at the country level, European regions (Eurostat) at the NUTS2 region level, and US counties (Census ACS). Each is shaded by an indicator you pick (GDP per capita, population, median income, and more).
Which census/metro layers appear depends on what your administrator has enabled, so the list you see may be shorter or longer than another firm's.
Turning a layer on
Each layer is a row with an on/off toggle. Flip it on and the map shades that layer's areas; flip it off and the shading is removed. Data you've loaded stays loaded for the session — turning a layer off and back on, panning, zooming, or switching map modes redraws instantly without re-downloading, and reopening a saved project repaints its layers from your browser's local cache. A large region (for example, a whole state's census tracts) loads progressively in pieces rather than refusing; only a truly continental view asks you to zoom in, and whatever is already loaded keeps showing.
You can turn on more than one layer at a time — they stack on the map.
Setting how a layer looks
Click a row to expand its controls. A census/metro layer and a world-figures layer differ only in their first control:
| Control | Applies to | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Shade by | Census & metro layers | A dropdown of the layer's numeric fields, with clean names (e.g. "Population", "Median household income"). The map recolours by the field you pick. A few layers are boundary-only — congressional districts, for example, publish outlines without any figures attached — and those simply have no Shade by dropdown. They still draw, and you can style their fill and outline; there is just nothing to colour them by. |
| Indicator | World figures | A dropdown of indicators grouped by category (Economic Output, Population & Society, and so on). The map recolours by the indicator you pick. |
| Colour | Both | A minimum → maximum colour pair with a gradient preview and a value legend showing the range (e.g. 121k → 4.2M). Areas with lower values get the minimum colour, higher values the maximum; areas with no data are left grey. |
| Transparency | Both | How much the base map shows through the shading. |
| Border | Both | Turns the outline around each area on or off, with a thickness slider. |
| Show labels | Both | Prints each area's value (or name) on the map, using the standard label style — size, colour, and halo. |
| About this layer | Both | A card describing the layer: its source, geography, how many areas are in view, and when the data was last updated. |
Focusing the shading on a region
Demographics works in all three map modes, and it respects the region you're focused on:
- Base map — shades every area in view.
- Focus mode — shades only the focused state or country, plus the surrounding regions when you've chosen to show them.
- Focus+ — shades the countries or regions you've selected.
In the focus modes, an expanded layer gains a Surrounding regions block. By default a layer shades only the focused region — turn on Include neighbor states (called Show on secondary regions in Focus+) to extend it to the areas around your focus. The neighbours can then read differently from your focus area: a fill opacity, their own optional colours (or "Match primary colours" to reuse the focus ramp), and a border colour and width. Neighbours are shown muted so the focus area stands out.
Reading a single area
Click any shaded area on the map to open a detail card: the area's name, the active value as a headline figure, every other value formatted below it, and a source line at the foot. Drag the card by its header to move it; close it with the ×, the Escape key, or by turning the layer off.
The About this layer card also carries quick statistics for what's shaded — how many areas matched, the average, and the highest and lowest (with their names).
Putting the scale in your deck
The colour scale exports through the standalone Legend — never baked onto the map image — so it drops into a slide alongside your exported map. The Legend renders a data layer's scale four ways: Classed bands (the default), Classed + counts, Gradient + axis, or Compact, chosen in the Legend panel.
Saving and reopening
A layer's settings (which layers are on, the field or indicator, colours, transparency, labels) save with the project. The downloaded data itself is cached in your browser rather than in the project file, so saved files stay small and a reopened project repaints its shading without re-downloading. Opening the same project on a different computer downloads the data once, then caches it there too.
For administrators
The layers offered in this tab are managed in the admin back office under Data Overlays — a catalog where a system administrator adds, edits, tests, and enables the census/metro layers each organization sees. The World Bank, Eurostat, and Census ACS indicator sets are governed by the same per-organization geocoder/overlay settings as the rest of the tool.