Want to draw a sales territory, franchise area, or store catchment - or bring yours in from a file - and see how many people, shops, and buildings are inside, and where two areas overlap? This guide walks you through Territory Mapping in London, from the first pin to the full dashboard, with no jargon.
A territory is just an area on a map - the ground around a shop, office, or branch that you care about. Territory Mapping lets you draw those areas in seconds, or bring them in from a file, and 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. Add a second area 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, with London as the example. No maps background needed - we explain every term as we go.
In plain English: “A smart first look, built on open data”
Territory Mapping is fast and transparent, built on open map and census data - places from Overture Maps (release 2026-08-19), London's residents from ONS Census 2021, as an estimate for each hex. It is ideal for comparing areas and planning coverage - then confirm the final call with local knowledge.
1
Open the Territory tool
At the top of the map there is a tool menu. Open it and choose Territory. You can also jump straight in with the link mapbees.com/app?tool=territory. This is the mode for drawing and comparing areas (the other modes are for general map exploration and market-share analysis).
The Territory panel has three tabs: Areas, Bands and Rush hour. This guide is about Areas, which opens first; the other two get their own section at the end.
2
Drop a pin
Every calculated area starts from a pin - the place you want to study. At the top of the Territory panel is the pin shelf, headed Pins · Shared by every section. Press Drop pin (or Drop pin on map in the row of buttons above the map) and tap the map where you want it; the hint reads “Tap the map to drop a pin.”
The pin shelf with one pin, Trafalgar. The selected pin is the one every tab builds from; the pencil renames it and the bin removes it.
There is no address search: find the place on the map and tap it. Pins stay where you drop them - they can't be dragged - so to start from somewhere else, drop another pin, and remove one you no longer need. Removing a pin keeps the areas already built from it. Your pins are shared by all three tabs, so you drop a pin once and use it in Areas, Bands and Rush hour.
In plain English: The pin
The pin is simply “here is the place I'm interested in” - your shop, a candidate location, a competitor. Everything a tab calculates is measured outward from it.
3
Choose how the area is drawn
Now decide the shape and size of the area, in the Create area card. There are three Area type options:
Time - everywhere you can reach within a number of minutes (a catchment). For example, “10 minutes by car.”
Distance - everywhere within a set distance along the streets, e.g. “2 km.”
Manual - press Start drawing, click points on the map, then Finish, when you want an exact shape of your own.
For Time and Distance, also pick a Travel mode - Driving, Walking, Cycling, or Transit - then drag the slider to set the value (the panel shows the maximum allowed). Finally, press Calculate area and MapBees draws the area around your pin.
A 10-minute drive from Trafalgar Square: 133 hexes, drawn as an outline with the map's colors inside it.
In plain English: Driving catchment
A 10-minute driving catchment is the blob of streets you could actually drive to in 10 minutes from the pin. It hugs real roads, rivers, and bridges - so this catchment (an isochrone) is far more realistic than drawing a plain circle on the map.
4
Or add your own areas from a file
Already have your sales territories or franchise areas drawn somewhere else? Under the Create area card, press Add your file - “A GeoJSON or KML file of areas: each one becomes an area here.” A GeoJSON file (.geojson or .json) works, and so does a KML or KMZ file from Google Earth or My Maps, in latitude and longitude. Each polygon becomes one area, up to 32 areas and 15 MB per file. Your file stays in this browser.
The dialog reads the file before anything is added: three areas, one in two pieces and one with a hole. Untick any you don't want, then press Add 3 areas.
The file in these pictures is an example: three made-up areas of London, not real territories. The northern one is a plain shape; the eastern one comes in two pieces - one around Bethnal Green and Stepney, one on the Isle of Dogs - and stays one area; the southern one has a hole: the hexes inside the hole are not part of the area. Each area keeps the name it has in the file; without one it is called Area 1, Area 2 and so on, and you can rename it afterwards.
The example file's areas on the map, beside the Trafalgar catchment. The eastern area's two pieces each get their own outline but stay one area, and the southern area's hole stays empty; the northern and southern areas run off the left edge of this crop.
What a file can't do
Points and lines are not areas and are left out, and an area outside the city is marked so in the dialog. A shapefile can't be read - the dialog says “A shapefile can't be read; save it as GeoJSON or KML first.” A file that isn't in latitude and longitude is refused too.
5
Manage and compare your areas
The Areas list shows every area you have made. Each row shows its name, color, and a short summary - “10 min · Driving · 133 hexes” for a catchment, or the file it came from. Each row offers three things: rename (the pencil, on hover), show or hide on the map (the eye), and delete (the bin, with an Undo). Below a file's areas, Remove all takes every area that file added in one go.
Four areas: one catchment and three from the example file, with Remove all for the file and the Overlap area row - here 4 shared hexes.
On the map, every area is drawn as a set of small hexes with a colored outline. When two areas cover the same hexes, an Overlap area row appears with the number of shared hexes - tap it to inspect that shared ground on its own.
In plain English: Why hexes?
The map is divided into thousands of equal hexes. Counting people and places hex by hex means every area - no matter its shape - can be measured and compared on exactly the same footing. You never have to think about them; they just make the numbers trustworthy.
6
Select an area and open its full dashboard
Tap an area in the list and the map moves to it; below the list, its name appears with one button, Open full dashboard. The dashboard opens with a tab for every area (and one for the overlap, when there is one), so you can flick between them.
Each dashboard starts with its headline numbers, where the data has them:
Population and Density - how many people live in the area, and how many per km².
Approx. area - the size in square kilometers, and how many hexes it covers.
Places - how many mapped 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.
Below them, the dashboard breaks the area down further - residents and their ages, buildings by type, and a Places section that groups every place into categories such as Retail & Shopping, Eat & Drink and Education, with the most common kinds ranked inside each. Need the full list of measures? See the supported measures catalog.
In plain English: Why the categories help
Instead of one big number, you see what kind of area it is. Lots of bars and restaurants suggests nightlife and footfall; lots of schools and family stores suggests a residential, family neighborhood. That tells you whether an area fits what you are looking for.
7
Inspect the overlap (shared) area
Tap the Overlap area to study just the ground two areas share. You get the same full dashboard, focused only on the contested ground: who lives there, the buildings, and the places. It is the perfect way to check the ground both sides are competing for - or to make sure two areas are not doubling up on the same customers.
If the shared ground is bigger or more valuable than you expected, drop a new pin, shrink a travel time, or redraw a boundary so each area covers its own ground more cleanly.
While the Areas tab is open, the map and its Score follow your areas: the map draws the areas you show, and the Score can be read within them. Switch tabs and the map follows the tab you have open.
8
Go further: Bands and Rush hour
The other two tabs build from the same pins:
Bands draws Catchment bands - 5, 10 and 15 minutes from one pin at once, each hex counted in the smallest band it falls in - with a bar per band for each measure, and Reach, which adds up the places in the bands with nearer bands counting more. One button copies a band into Areas.
Rush hour draws one drive at 2 to 4 times of a typical week and shows how many residents each reaches - the Rush-hour shrink. It runs only when you press Check rush hour.
A shape you study in Territory Mapping: one calculated from a pin, one you draw, or one from a file you add.
Pin
A place on the map that the Territory tool builds from. Drop it once and Areas, Bands and Rush hour all use it.
Catchment
Everywhere you can reach from the pin within a set time, e.g. a 10-minute drive. It follows real streets, not a plain circle.
Distance
The area type for everywhere within a set distance from the pin, e.g. 2 km, measured along the streets.
Piece and hole
An area from a file can come in several pieces and still be one area; a hole is a bit cut out of it, and its hexes are not part of the area.
Hex
One hexagon on the map, about 350 m across (roughly 0.1 km²). The map is split into equal hexes and MapBees counts people and places hex by hex, so areas are easy to add up and compare.
Places
Mapped shops, restaurants, schools, banks, bars, and so on.
Built volume
The total size of all buildings in an area, in cubic meters - a quick gauge of how built-up it is.
Overlap area
The hexes that belong to two or more of your areas 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).
Drop a pin: press Drop pin, then tap the map. Pins are shared by every tab.
Choose how to size the area - travel time, distance, or a shape you draw - then press Calculate area.
Or press Add your file to bring in areas from a GeoJSON or KML file, pieces and holes kept.
Rename, hide or delete areas in the list; the Overlap area row shows the ground two of them share.
Select an area and press Open full dashboard to compare population, places and built volume.
Remember: Territory Mapping is a fast, transparent way to compare areas and plan coverage - a smart starting point built on open data, not the final word.
Ready to try it? Open Territory Mapping and draw your first area in under a minute.
Quick questions
How do I create a territory?
Open the Territory tool, press Drop pin and tap the map, choose how to size the area (a travel time, a distance, or a shape you draw), then press Calculate area. To bring in areas you already have, press Add your file and pick a GeoJSON or KML file.
What does a travel-time catchment show?
A travel-time catchment is everywhere you can reach within a set time - for example, a 10-minute drive from a shop. MapBees draws that catchment as your territory, so it follows real roads instead of a plain circle.
Can I compare more than one territory?
Yes. Add as many areas as you like: the Areas list shows each one with its size in hexes, and each row lets you rename, hide or show, or delete it. Open full dashboard gives every area its own tab, so you can compare population, places and building volume.
What is the overlap area?
When two territories cover some of the same ground, those shared hexes are the overlap area. You can tap it to inspect exactly who and what sits in the part both areas share - useful for spotting conflict or double coverage.
What does each territory dashboard show?
Select an area and press Open full dashboard: it starts with headline numbers such as population, approximate area, density, places and built volume, then breaks down residents, buildings and places grouped by category (shops, food, schools, nightlife, and more), wherever the data has them.
See it on a real map
Open Territory Mapping and draw your own areas - compare them, find the overlap, and open the full dashboard for each.
Builds MapBees's location-intelligence pipeline end to end — census and Overture Maps ingestion, H3 hex scoring, and the map interface — and writes the methodology behind every number on the site.
