Gradient Maps in Power BI
I’m still on a Power BI kick so this post will address gradient maps in Power BI. I’m still using the unemployment data. In situations like this, gradient colors in maps are a very useful way of depicting how events are shaping up throughout the country.
Here’s the map I’m addressing today:
The source of the data is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED):
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate in all states [xxUR], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/xxUR, May 9, 2026.
You can see that unemployment is higher in the western region, probably due to the tech industry. The states bordering the Great Lakes also have higher unemployment whereas the other Midwestern states have some of the lowest unemployment rates. Getting this kind of color gradients allows you to picture where the job market is struggling – much better than a table of numbers.
Layout of Power BI Page
Just to briefly describe the Power BI page, the top part is of course the map doing a color gradient from lowest unemployment (in whitish blue) to the highest unemployment (in red).
At the bottom left, is a bunch of squares referred to as tiles. This is the filter section where you can select the date you want.
To the right is a card depicting the highest unemployment rate and the state(s) that has the highest unemployment. For February 2026 (the latest date the government has), California and Delaware had the highest unemployment.
Next to that card is another card depicting the lowest unemployment, which in February 2026 was Hawaii and South Dakota.
And then at the far right is the text box holding the legend describing the meaning of the colors. The whitish blue would the lower unemployment and then the colors go through a gradient of yellow, then orange on to red – the highest unemployment rate. That legend was the best I could do for the time being, even with CoPilot.
Getting the map
Image 2: Visualization pane with map icon outlined
The icon highlighted in red in image 2 is the one that allows you to create color gradients. The other map will not allow you.
Image 3: Go into the formatting pane (icon with the paintbrush) and go to the “Fill colors” as shown in the image. You will want to click on the “fx” to reach the conditional formatting.
Image 4: Clicking “fx” leads you to the image on the left. Make sure you select Gradient and the field you want the color gradient to depict. In this instance, I’m color grading the unemployment rate, from lowest to highest. Below that are the color choices I made.
And those choices should do the trick.
Closing
Tomorrow I will address the max and min unemployment. They are relatively easy except for the part pulling in the states with the lowest and highest unemployment. I had to create measures to pull the states.
That is for tomorrow.
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