Colour-coded map maker
Colour countries or states by category, name each colour in a legend and download the map. Free, no sign-up.
A colour-coded map sorts places into a few groups and gives each group a colour: where a product is live, where it is launching, where talks have stalled. The editor above opens on the colour-coded world template, which does exactly that, with countries in five colours and a legend that names each one. Change the countries, the colours and the words, and it becomes your map.
What people colour-code
Rollout and status maps are the most common: the countries where a service is live, coming soon or on hold, for a board pack or an investor update. Companies colour countries or states by the team, office or distributor that covers them; charities by the type of programme they run in each country; schools by the topic each class is studying.
Colour-coding also suits anything that is a label rather than a number: the countries a family has lived in, worked in and visited; the states where a law has passed, is in debate or has not started; the countries in each group of a sports draw. When your categories come with figures attached, such as sales by country, a choropleth is the better fit, since it works the colours out from the numbers.
Colours, legend and categories
Work one category at a time. Click every country in it, so they are all selected, and pick the category's colour on the card: the colour goes to every selected country at once. Then click the sea, or choose Deselect on the card, to clear the selection before you start the next category; otherwise the next colour lands on the last group too. Keep to five or six colours at most, and choose ones that read apart at a glance and in black-and-white print; the palettes under Style give you sets that already work together.
The legend does the explaining. Turn on Show legend on the Canvas tab of More: every colour on the map gets a line, and you type its meaning under Legend labels in the Data panel. For a long list of places, skip the clicking: paste the place and its category on the Data tab and choose Categories, and the editor gives each category a colour and a legend line for you.
How to do it in MapMaker
- Click every country of your first category, then pick its colour on the card beside the map.
- Click the sea, or choose Deselect on the card, to clear the selection, then do the same for the next category.
- Turn on Show legend on the Canvas tab of More.
- Type a name for each colour under Legend labels in the Data panel.
- Choose Download and save the map as a PNG for a slide or a PDF for a report.
Where to go next
The colour-coded world template is the starting map above. For a colour-coded map of one country, start from its editable page, such as the map of the US states; to colour places from figures rather than categories, use the choropleth map generator.
Questions people ask
How do I name each colour in the legend?
Turn on Show legend on the Canvas tab of More, and each colour on the map gets a line. Then open the Data panel and type a name for each one under Legend labels, such as Live, In talks or On hold.
What is the difference between a colour-coded map and a choropleth map?
On a colour-coded map you choose the colours yourself, one per category, such as a status or a team. A choropleth works its colours out from numbers, darker for more. For figures in a spreadsheet, use the choropleth map generator instead.
Can I make a colour-coded map of the US states?
Yes. Start from the editable map of the US states, which opens with all 50 states and the District of Columbia drawn, then click each state and give it the colour of its category.
Can I colour countries from a list instead of clicking each one?
Yes. Paste two columns on the Data tab, the place and its category written as a word, and choose the Categories method. Each category gets its own colour and its own line in the legend.