Dot map maker
Turn the map into dots (poster, halftone, pixel, stipple or hex) in your own colours. Free, no sign-up.
Dots read well at a distance, so a dotted world in two colours makes a quiet background for a slide title or a conference badge. The editor above opens on the world drawn in the Dot style. Change the dot preset, the spacing and the colours, colour a few countries to make a point, and download it.
Where dot maps are used
Design is the main home for them. A dotted world sits behind a website's hero text, on the cover of an annual report or across a trade show stand, and a halftone map gives a poster a printed, slightly retro feel.
They work for a message too. Colour the dots of the countries where a company has offices in its brand colour and leave the rest grey, and the map says global without a single label. On social posts, a square dot map with one country picked out pairs well with a short headline.
Dot settings in the editor
The dots live on the Style tab of More: set Fill to Dot, then choose a Dot preset. Each preset is a different texture, from the even round dots of Poster to the scattered ones of Stipple. Spacing, Shape and Edge fine-tune the result, and Undo steps back through every change.
Colours come from the same places as on any map: Colours in the toolbar for land and sea, a country's card for the country alone. On the Globe projection hex dots, halftone and soft edges are not available: hex falls back to a square grid, and the editor says so on the map.
How to do it in MapMaker
- Open More, go to the Style tab and set Fill to Dot.
- Pick a Dot preset, then adjust Spacing, Shape and Edge.
- Set the land and sea under Colours in the toolbar, and click any country to give it its own colour.
- Choose Download and save an SVG for a design tool or a PNG for a slide.
Where to go next
For a ready-made background, start from the slide background template or the social post template and switch them to dots. To colour countries without dots, the world map generator has every other style.
Questions people ask
Can I change the size and shape of the dots?
Yes. With Dot chosen as the fill on the Style tab of More, Spacing sets how far apart the dots sit, Shape sets their outline and Edge makes them crisp or soft. Each preset is a starting point for those settings.
Which dot presets are there?
Five: Poster, Halftone, Pixel, Stipple and Hex. Poster sets even rows of round dots, Halftone varies their size, Pixel uses small squares, Stipple scatters dots of random sizes and Hex packs hexagons in a honeycomb.
Can I colour some countries differently on a dot map?
Yes. Click a country and pick a colour on its card, as on any other map: its dots take that colour. Land and sea colours for the whole map are under Colours in the toolbar.
Which file should I download for a design?
SVG, if the dots are going into Illustrator, Inkscape or Figma, where every dot stays a sharp shape at any size. A PNG on a transparent background suits slides and social posts.