Spatial objects define geographic areas that can be as simple as a point and as complex as multi-sided polygons. This allows you to render everything from custom trade areas to rivers, roads, and historic boundaries of counties and countries. Spatial objects can be stored in spatial files and are supported by some relational databases as well.

Tableau supports numerous spatial file formats, such as ESRI, MapInfo, KML, GeoJSON, and TopoJSON. Additionally, you may connect directly to ESRI databases as well as relational databases with geospatial support, such as SQL Server. If you create an extract, the spatial objects will be included in the extract.

Many applications, such as Alteryx, Google Earth, and ArcGIS, can be used to generate spatial files. Spatial files are also readily available for download from numerous organizations. This gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to geospatial analysis.

Here, for example, is a map of US railroads:

To replicate this example, download the Shapefile from here: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/tiger-line-shapefile-2015-nation-u-s-rails-national-shapefile.

Once you have downloaded and unzipped the files, connect to the tl_2015_us_rails.shp file. In the preview, you'll see records of data with ID fields and railway names. The Geometry field is the spatial object that defines the linear shape of the railroad segment:

On a blank sheet, simply double-click the Geometry field. Tableau will include the geographic collection in the detail and introduce automatically generated Latitude and Longitude fields to complete the rendering. Experiment with including the ID field in the detail and with filtering based on Fullname.