Calculators & maps / publishing tools
Accessible Map Palette Generator
Preview vetted palettes on a map and export colors and legend settings.
Your spreadsheet stays in this tab. No account is required.
Saved illustrative example. Interactive controls load automatically.
- Class 1
rgb(239,243,255) - Class 2
rgb(189,215,231) - Class 3
rgb(107,174,214) - Class 4
rgb(49,130,189) - Class 5
rgb(8,81,156)
Matched data
The table keeps exact names and values, including leading-zero identifiers.
| Place | Identifier | State | Value / group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | AL | AL | 1 |
| Alaska | AK | AK | 2 |
| Arizona | AZ | AZ | 3 |
| Arkansas | AR | AR | 4 |
| California | CA | CA | 5 |
| Colorado | CO | CO | 6 |
| Connecticut | CT | CT | 7 |
| Delaware | DE | DE | 8 |
| District of Columbia | DC | DC | 9 |
| Florida | FL | FL | 10 |
| Georgia | GA | GA | 11 |
| Hawaii | HI | HI | 12 |
| Idaho | ID | ID | 13 |
| Illinois | IL | IL | 14 |
| Indiana | IN | IN | 15 |
| Iowa | IA | IA | 16 |
| Kansas | KS | KS | 17 |
| Kentucky | KY | KY | 18 |
| Louisiana | LA | LA | 19 |
| Maine | ME | ME | 20 |
| Maryland | MD | MD | 21 |
| Massachusetts | MA | MA | 22 |
| Michigan | MI | MI | 23 |
| Minnesota | MN | MN | 24 |
| Mississippi | MS | MS | 25 |
| Missouri | MO | MO | 26 |
| Montana | MT | MT | 27 |
| Nebraska | NE | NE | 28 |
| Nevada | NV | NV | 29 |
| New Hampshire | NH | NH | 30 |
| New Jersey | NJ | NJ | 31 |
| New Mexico | NM | NM | 32 |
| New York | NY | NY | 33 |
| North Carolina | NC | NC | 34 |
| North Dakota | ND | ND | 35 |
| Ohio | OH | OH | 36 |
| Oklahoma | OK | OK | 37 |
| Oregon | OR | OR | 38 |
| Pennsylvania | PA | PA | 39 |
| Rhode Island | RI | RI | 40 |
| South Carolina | SC | SC | 41 |
| South Dakota | SD | SD | 42 |
| Tennessee | TN | TN | 43 |
| Texas | TX | TX | 44 |
| Utah | UT | UT | 45 |
| Vermont | VT | VT | 46 |
| Virginia | VA | VA | 47 |
| Washington | WA | WA | 48 |
| West Virginia | WV | WV | 49 |
| Wisconsin | WI | WI | 50 |
| Wyoming | WY | WY | 51 |
Choose a palette for the data
Sequential schemes show ordered magnitudes. Diverging schemes show change around a meaningful midpoint. Categorical schemes distinguish unordered groups. The preview uses illustrative state values, not observed state rankings.
This generator offers only ColorBrewer scheme/class combinations marked colorblind-safe in its published specifications: Blues, PuBuGn, RdBu, PuOr and the three-class Dark2 scheme. It preserves the original discrete colors; reversing them changes their order. Availability varies by scheme.
Swatches choose black or white text using the higher WCAG contrast ratio. Palette suitability is not a guarantee that every adjacent map shape or label has adequate contrast. Retain boundaries, explicit labels and a data table, and check the exported map in its final context.
Prepare and export
CSV and TSV imports are limited to 2 MB and 5,000 rows. Quoted numeric values may contain thousands separators. Review the import, correct issues or explicitly accept the matched subset, and confirm the map. Personal data is never sent to a map service or included in analytics.
SVG preserves editable vector shapes, titles and legends. PNG uses double the SVG dimensions. The matched CSV keeps unavailable values blank. Settings JSON records colors, breaks and labels; it excludes the original pasted spreadsheet.
Sources and reproducibility
County boundaries: Census 2024 cartographic county file. County names and identifiers: current Gazetteer lookup. State outline: us-atlas Census-derived geography.
Color specifications and designs developed by Cynthia Brewer: ColorBrewer. Vetted combinations come from the published scheme specifications. Archived geometry and source checksums are listed in the source manifest.