How to choose colors for a map (so people can actually read it)

Color is the entire message of a thematic map — and the most common way maps go wrong. The good news is that map color has been studied for decades, and the rules boil down to one question: what kind of data are you showing? There are only three answers, and each has its own kind of palette.

1. Ordered data → sequential palette

If your values run from low to high — rainfall, income, population density — use a sequential ramp: one hue, light to dark. Readers decode it without thinking: darker means more. In MapPalette this is the Blues, Reds, Greens or Viridis option in the Palette dropdown.

Sequential (Blues): light = low, dark = high.

2. Data with a midpoint → diverging palette

If your values swing around a meaningful center — profit vs. loss, above vs. below the national average, swing toward party A or party B — use a diverging palette: two hues meeting at a neutral middle. The crucial part is that the pale middle color must sit exactly on your midpoint, otherwise the map quietly lies.

Diverging (Red–Yellow–Green): neutral middle on the meaningful midpoint. Careful: this pair is hard for red-green colorblind readers — red–blue is safer.

3. Categories → distinct hues, but few of them

If regions belong to groups with no order — language families, sales territories, "visited / not visited" — use clearly different hues. The practical limit is about five to seven categories: beyond that, readers spend more time matching colors to the legend than reading the map. If you have more categories than that, merge the small ones into "Other" — the map will say more, not less.

Categorical: distinct hues, similar brightness, five or fewer if you can.

Design for colorblind readers

Roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of color-vision deficiency, almost always affecting red vs. green. For any map with a wide audience:

• Prefer single-hue sequential ramps (Blues is the safest palette that exists) or Viridis, which was designed to stay ordered for all common deficiencies.
• Avoid red–green diverging scales; use red–blue or orange–purple instead.
• MapPalette's Palette dropdown includes a dedicated Colorblind safe categorical set (the Okabe–Ito palette) — use it whenever categories matter.
• Patterns help too: the Stripes and Dots fill options distinguish two regions even in grayscale print.

Sea and background: the colors people forget

The default pale-blue sea works everywhere, but two adjustments instantly lift a map's polish. For documents and slides, set the sea to white (or your slide background color) so the map floats seamlessly on the page. For dark-mode designs or dramatic title slides, a deep navy sea (#0f2547) with brighter country fills looks striking — just make sure uncolored countries stay visible against it. Both are two clicks in the Map Colors panel.

A 30-second checklist before you export

1. Does dark mean "more"? (If not, why not?)
2. Could a red-green colorblind reader still rank the regions?
3. Are there seven or fewer distinct colors/classes?
4. Does every color appear in the legend, including "No data"?
5. Do the legend labels carry units?
6. Squint test: blur your eyes — does the intended pattern still show?

Frequently asked questions

What's the single safest palette choice?

A Blues sequential ramp on a white sea. It's readable by everyone, prints well in grayscale, and never looks unprofessional. When in doubt, start there.

Can I use my own brand colors?

Yes — the Custom color picker accepts any hex code, so you can build a palette from your brand colors. Keep the lightness steps big: brand palettes are usually designed for logos, not for encoding five ordered classes.

Where can I try these palettes?

Every palette mentioned here is built into the world map maker, the India map and all 250+ country maps — the Palette dropdown is in Step 1 on the left of any map page.