In Tableau 8.2 one of the changes we made was how we provide the underlying raster tiles for Tableau maps. Prior to 8.2 our tiles were provided through a 3rd party service provider but with the new release we changed to a platform run internally at Tableau. This allowed us to provide an updated set of tiles with improved styling, support for Hi-DPI content, more detail across the globe and additional data features.

If you wanted to use the old map tiles you were able to change back to the legacy tile service by selecting the Tableau Classic option through the Background Maps menu. The tiles would then be retrieved from the 3rd party service:

Last week, in a move that should be completely transparent to you, we redirected the classic map service to also be provided from our internal map servers. Both the new and the classic tiles are now delivered from the same infrastructure – just as different “styles”.

While the classic tiles will look the same as before (please let us know if you see any differences) there is one nice benefit from this change – we now have the same level of global coverage with the classic style as we do with the new style. So in areas where we previously had the dreaded red X indicating no available tiles we can now see glorious detail: