What follows assumes that you have a shapefile with geographical information (coordinates) for a map to be drawn. (See ).
Unless you are using one of the predefined maps, you will have to add your own map to the collection of maps. The creates a map that SPSS can use; the utility is also used to modify an existing map (removing elements, modifying the data key,...).
In a first step you select a shapefile (the example uses a shapefile downloaded from the website of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office GEOSTAT ). There are two supported formats ESRI shape files, as well SPSS SMZ files (the Conversion Utility can be used to edit such a file). Select the file and make sure that you have ticked Import to template chooser.
In a second step you will have to select the map key (data key) that will be used to link data to the map features. In our example we select NAME_1, as it corresponds to the Swiss cantons and we wish to draw a map with the 26 Swiss cantons (the downloaded shape files also contains communes and districts, we could use to define maps for these geographical units).
Step 3 let you edit the map (see the task list for the various operations). In the example shown the names of the cantons (feature labels) are the name of the Swiss cantons fully spelled out. For the example that follows I have replaced these labels using the usual 2-letter abbreviations, i.e. ZH, BE etc. to ease matching the data with the map labels.
Step 4 saves the map according to your specifications
To actually draw a map use and select variables and then choose among the various visualizations one that corresponds to the map you wish to draw.
The details are explained in the following examples: