What is a hierarchy in Tableau?

A hierarchy arranges related dimensions in a parent-child order so viewers can drill down from a broad category to finer detail directly within a single view, using the small expand/collapse (+/-) icons Tableau adds automatically.

Location Hierarchy:
  Country
    -> State
        -> City

• Tableau automatically creates a default Date hierarchy (Year → Quarter → Month → Day) whenever a date field is used.
• Custom hierarchies (like Country → State → City) are built by dragging one dimension onto another in the data pane, which prompts Tableau to create the hierarchy grouping.
• Once a hierarchy exists, clicking the "+" icon next to the top-level field on a shelf drills into the next level, without needing to manually swap fields in and out.

Hierarchies are purely a navigation convenience layer over existing fields — they don't create new data or calculations, they just organize how a viewer can drill up and down through related dimensions already present in the source.

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