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Tableau | Data visualisation | Data prep

WKT support and GeoJSON: New in Tableau 2021.3

I always assumed these spatial file types were already supported, but 2021.3 finally makes connecting to WKT and GeoJSON effortless.

Tim Ngwena •23 November 2021 •1 min read •3 min watch •2.6K

Part ofWhat's New in Tableau 2021.3

Watch on YouTube

Tableau 2021.3 lets you connect to spatial data stored as text inside delimited files such as TSV, CSV or Excel, without first converting to a shapefile via a script
To turn a text-based polygon column into usable spatial data, connect to the text file then change the field's data type from abc to the spatial option
Once converted, you can double-click the polygon field to instantly map the geometry on a sheet
GeoJSON is treated as a spatial file format, so connect to it through the spatial file connection option rather than the text file option
Previously these formats required external scripting, so the built-in support saves significant data prep effort

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video I'm

0:01covering a few features from 2021.3 that I

0:03hadn't covered

0:05and this one I'm covering is WKT or GeoJSON

0:08support. Now this is a bit of a weird one

0:10because

0:10I always thought these file types were

0:12already supported but actually when you dig

0:14into the

0:14details this is a very particular way of

0:16supporting these spatial files. Just to

0:18show you how this

0:19works let me go over here to a text file

0:21option. So typically when you connect to

0:23spatial datasets

0:24you go to the spatial options but this one

0:26you can actually go to a slightly different

0:28file type. So

0:29in this case I'm going to open up this tab

0:32separated file this TSV. If I click open

0:35you'll

0:35see that it opens this data source which

0:37has a data source over here and you can see

0:39that Tableau's

0:40brought it into its data model over here on

0:42the left. Now the important thing to notice

0:44here is

0:44that the sample county is the name which is

0:47fine but you can see my polygon data is

0:50actually

0:50contained in text inside of the file. So

0:53essentially if I open this file up let's go

0:56ahead and do that

0:57now very quickly. If I go over here to this

0:59particular file and just click open and it

1:02's

1:03going to ask me what to open it in. I'll

1:05just open it in WordPad just so you can see

1:06the file.

1:07You can see the data is actually there it's

1:09just held as text so it's not very a good

1:12format to

1:13connect to. Now previously what you'd have

1:15to do is you'd have to run a script to kind

1:17of get all

1:17of that set up into a shape file then you

1:19could bring it into Tableau but with this

1:21feature you

1:22can just go here to where it says abc and

1:24select the spatial option and there you go

1:27Tableau turns

1:28it into a polygon straight away and when we

1:30go to sheet one we can double click the

1:31polygon and

1:32voila we have the spatial data ready to

1:35visualize. Now I googled a bit about the w

1:38kt and geo json

1:39support and I actually found that this is

1:41actually quite a painful thing to do.

1:42Normally people have

1:43to run scripts to do this and it's just

1:45nice that Tableau has this ready to go so

1:47if you use Tableau

1:48this might be already a really good way of

1:50making sure that you've got the data set

1:51ready to go

1:52and you can work with it. Now you saw me

1:54open up a tsv that's essentially just a

1:56text file it's

1:57very similar to csv you could also do the

1:59same thing in excel it's no different it's

2:01exactly

2:02the same setup. Now what I'm going to do is

2:04open up a geo json file just to see how

2:06that works

2:06differently so to do this I'm actually just

2:08going to add a different spatial file here

2:10and I'm just

2:11going to go to the spatial file option

2:13because a geo json is actually a spatial

2:15file format and

2:16you can see here that I've got the file on

2:18my desktop. Let's go ahead and open that

2:20and when

2:20we open up we get the standard sort of view

2:23here that we're supposed to get and you can

2:26see here

2:26that I actually do get three different

2:28names and the three different polygons and

2:30it's automatically

2:31supported. If I go to a new sheet here and

2:33I just go ahead and put geometry on color

2:35just to make

2:36sure we've got everything we need. Actually

2:38I need to put name on color just so that we

2:39make

2:40sure we've got those three things set out

2:41and this is a slightly different sample

2:43data set so

2:44it looks slightly different to the previous

2:45one and you can see that we've got the

2:47three polygons

2:48there there's one there there's one here

2:49and there's one there and that's all

2:51working nicely.

2:52So again very easy to connect to these file

2:54types and get them working. That's pretty

2:56much it for

2:56the feature there's not much more to that I

2:58'm not a spatial expert so if you've got any

3:00questions put

3:00them in the comments below and I'll try and

3:02do some research to try and answer them in

3:03the future.

3:04Thanks for watching and I'll catch you in

3:06the next video.

Rollup

Tableau 2021.3 adds native support for spatial data stored as WKT text in delimited files and for GeoJSON files, so you no longer need to run external scripts to convert them into shapefiles before mapping them.

Spatial polygon data is sometimes stored as plain WKT text inside a TSV, CSV or Excel file, or as a separate GeoJSON file, rather than as a shapefile. Previously getting either into Tableau meant scripting a conversion first.

The Breakdown

Connect via the text file option for WKT 0:19

If your spatial geometry is stored as WKT text inside a delimited file (TSV, CSV, or Excel), connect using the standard text file connection rather than the spatial file option. Tableau pulls it into the data model like any other text source, with the geometry sitting in a column as plain text.
Convert the text field to a spatial data type 1:22

Once connected, find the column holding the WKT text (its type shows as abc) and change its data type to the spatial option. Tableau instantly turns it into a usable polygon field, and you can double-click it on a sheet to render the geometry straight away, no scripting or shapefile conversion required.
Connect to GeoJSON as a spatial file 2:04

GeoJSON is treated as a spatial file format, not a text file, so connect to it through the spatial file connection option instead. It comes in ready to use, with geometry and any attribute fields already recognised, so you can put geometry and other fields straight onto a sheet to map it.

Worth Knowing

The WKT-in-text-file technique works the same whether the source is TSV, CSV or Excel — the format of the container doesn't matter, only that the geometry is stored as text.
Tim notes this used to require running a script to convert the text into a shapefile before Tableau could use it, so this removes a real data-prep step.
He flags he isn't a spatial expert, so treat this as a walkthrough of the mechanics rather than deep spatial guidance.

Use It When

Reach for this when you're handed spatial data as raw WKT text in a spreadsheet-style file or as a GeoJSON file, and you want to map it directly without detouring through shapefile conversion scripts.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

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