Why is geospatial customization so hard in Quick Sight? I couldn’t even build a heatmap for Brazil

Q&A
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Hi folks — am I missing something, or is geospatial customization in Quick Sight quite limited?

Context: I’m analyzing ~2M Brazilian users. From the CPF I derive a macroregion (Sudeste, Nordeste, Sul, etc.). My dataset has:

  • country = “Brasil”

  • uf = SP/RJ/… (works for choropleth by state)

  • macroregion = Sudeste/Nordeste/…

  • latitude, longitude (centroids for each macroregion)

  • users (count)

Pain points I ran into:

  1. When I try to plot macroregion as geography, Quick Sight assumes US unless I add country and avoid using “State/Province” for macroregion.

  2. I wanted a geospatial heatmap (density/intensity) for Brazil, but I couldn’t find a native way to do it—only bubbles or filled map by state. Using centroids with lat/long gives me bubbles, not a true heat layer.

  3. I also couldn’t find a way to persist color assignments for categories (e.g., always use the same colors for each macroregion across visuals).

Questions:

  • Is there a built-in heatmap (density) visual for maps in Quick Sight? If yes, what field types are required?

  • What’s the recommended approach to map custom regions (macroregions) that aren’t native shapes—any support for custom polygons/GeoJSON/TopoJSON, or best-practice workarounds?

  • How do I reliably force Brazil as the geocoding context so it doesn’t default to US when fields aren’t in a hierarchy?

  • Any roadmap or tips to improve geospatial customization (custom regions, persistent color mapping, better controls)?

Thanks!

2

Hi @lbptech

Welcome to the Quick Sight community!

Quick Sight supports a geospatial heatmap visual. To use it, create a point map with latitude and longitude, select “Format visual,” then under “Points,” switch the point style to “Heatmap.” This overlays a density layer to highlight areas with high concentrations of users.

For mapping custom regions (such as your macroregions) or stylized overlays, Quick Sight’s “Layer Maps” feature allows you to upload custom GeoJSON polygon files. This enables direct control over regional boundaries, coloration, and interactivity, making it the most flexible approach for true custom region mapping.

Please refer to the below documentations this might be helpful for you.

3

Hi @lbptech

It’s been a while since we last heard from you. If you have any further questions, please let us know how we can assist you.

If we don’t hear back within the next 3 business days, we’ll proceed with close/archive this topic.

Thank you!

4

Hi @lbptech

Since we have not heard back from you, I’ll go ahead and close/archive this topic. However, if you have any additional questions, feel free to create a new topic in the community and link this discussion for relevant information.

Thank you!