How to use Territory Mapping (step by step)

What Territory Mapping tells you

A territory is just a zone you draw on a map - the area around a shop, office, or branch that you care about. Territory Mapping lets you draw those zones in seconds and instantly see what is inside each one: how many people live there, how many shops and schools and restaurants there are, and how built-up it is. Draw a second zone and it also shows you exactly where the two overlap.

People use it to answer everyday business questions: Which neighborhoods does my store actually reach? How should I split a city fairly between two franchisees or sales reps? Do my two branches step on each other's toes? Which area has the most potential customers? This guide walks you through it from the first click to the full dashboard. No maps background needed - we explain every term as we go.

At the top of the map there is a tool menu. Open it and choose Territory. You can also jump straight in with the deep link geointel.cc/app?tool=territory. This is the mode for drawing and comparing areas (the other modes are for general map exploration and market-share analysis).

Every territory starts from a point on the map - the center of the zone you want to study. There are two easy ways to set it: type an address into the Location search box, or click Click the map to place pin and tap anywhere on the map. Once the pin is down you can drag it to fine-tune the exact spot.

Now you decide the shape and size of the territory. There are three Area type options:

• Time - everywhere you can reach within a number of minutes (a drive-time area). For example, “10 minutes by car.”
• Distance - everywhere within a set distance along the roads, e.g. “2 km.”
• Manual - draw the boundary yourself by clicking points on the map, when you want an exact custom shape.

For Time and Distance, also pick a Travel mode - Driving, Walking, or Cycling - then drag the slider to set the value (the panel shows the maximum allowed). Finally, press Calculate area and Geo-Intel draws the zone around your pin.

Repeat Steps 2-3 to add as many territories as you need - one per shop, branch, franchisee, or sales rep. Each gets its own color. On the map, every territory is drawn as a set of small hexes (six-sided tiles) with a colored outline. Where two territories cover the same tiles, that shared ground is highlighted as the overlap area.

The Areas panel lists every territory you have drawn. Each row shows its name, color, and a quick summary - here, “10 min · Driving · 137 hexes.” Use the row buttons to rename, recolor, show/hide, edit, or delete an area. When two areas overlap, an Overlap area row appears with the number of shared hexes - tap it to inspect that shared zone on its own.

Select any territory and you get its three headline numbers right away - no setup required:

• Approx. area - the size of the zone in square kilometres (and how many hexes it covers).
• Points of interest - how many named places (shops, food, schools, and so on) sit inside.
• Built volume - the total amount of building in the area, a quick gauge of how busy and developed it is.

Because every area is measured the same way, you can compare them directly. In the example below, the first territory holds far more points of interest (35,348) than the second (19,539), while the overlap they fight over is a small but dense slice of the city.

Want the full picture? Press Open full dashboard on any territory. This opens a rich breakdown built from open census and map data, including a Points of interest section that groups every place into easy categories - Retail & Shopping, Eat & Drink, Education, Arts & Entertainment, Financial Services, Bars & Nightlife, and more - with the most common types ranked inside each group. There is also a building-volume breakdown by type (residential, commercial, retail, and so on).

Finally, tap the Overlap area to study just the ground two territories share. You get the same full dashboard, focused only on the contested zone: total population and age split, household and family makeup, an Affluence section (rent, home value, household size), and the local population mix. It is the perfect way to check the area both sides are competing for - or to make sure two territories are not doubling up on the same customers.

If the shared area is bigger or more valuable than you expected, you might move a pin, shrink a travel time, or redraw a boundary so each territory covers its own patch more cleanly.

Every term, in one place

Bookmark this if a word ever trips you up.

Territory (area)

A zone you draw on the map around a place, so you can study everyone and everything inside it.

Catchment / trade area

The area a shop or branch can realistically reach or serve - the customers it can pull in.

Isochrone (drive-time area)

Everywhere you can reach within a set time, e.g. a 10-minute drive. It follows real roads, not a plain circle.

Isodistance (distance area)

Everywhere within a set distance, e.g. 2 km, measured along the road network.

Hex

The map is split into small, equal six-sided tiles. Geo-Intel counts people and places tile by tile, so areas are easy to add up and compare.

Points of interest (POI)

Named places on the map - shops, restaurants, schools, banks, bars, and so on.

Built volume

The total size of all buildings in an area, in cubic metres - a quick gauge of how built-up it is.

Overlap area

The tiles that belong to two or more of your territories at the same time - the ground they share.

The whole workflow, in six lines

• Open the tool menu and choose Territory (or go to /app?tool=territory).
• Pick a location: search an address or click the map to drop a pin.
• Choose how to size it - travel time, distance, or a shape you draw - then press Calculate area.
• Add more areas; the map highlights where any two of them overlap.
• Compare the headline numbers - area, points of interest, and built volume - for each one.
• Open the full dashboard for any area, and tap the overlap to inspect the shared zone.

Ready to try it? Open Territory Mapping and draw your first area in under a minute.