World Choropleth Map Maker

How the World Choropleth Map Maker works

World choropleth map maker: what to paste

Two columns: a country and a number, one per row, separated by commas or tabs. A header row is optional; when present the value column's name becomes the legend title unless you set one. Countries can be given as common English names (United States, Germany, South Korea), ISO alpha-2 codes (US, DE, KR) or alpha-3 codes (USA, DEU, KOR). Matching ignores case, a leading "the" and punctuation, and common variants such as UK, Britain, Russia, Czech Republic, Ivory Coast, DR Congo, Vietnam, Burma and Swaziland are understood. Rows that match nothing are listed under Unmatched rows in the stats so you can correct them. The map has 177 countries at a scale suited to a whole-world view; very small states such as Singapore, Malta and Monaco are not drawn and will show as unmatched.

Colour scale and classes

Continuous maps the lowest value to the palest tint and the highest to the darkest, with every value in between placed proportionally. Choosing 4 to 7 classes instead splits the range into equal-width bands, each with one colour, which is easier to read against the legend and is the usual choice for printed maps. The single-hue scales (Blues, Greens, Reds, Oranges, Purples) suit data that runs from little to much; Viridis and Yellow to red give more contrast across the range; Red to blue is a diverging scale for values with a natural midpoint, such as change from last year. Countries without a value are drawn in light grey and marked "no data" in the legend.

Projection and labels

Natural Earth is a compromise projection that keeps shapes and sizes both reasonable and is the default for world thematic maps. Equal Earth preserves area exactly, so a country's shaded region is proportional to its real size, which matters when readers will judge amounts by eye. Equirectangular is the plain longitude-latitude grid, useful when the map must line up with other data on the same grid. Labels can be turned on for matched countries only, either as names or as the value itself in short form, in white on dark fills and black on pale ones.

Reading the stats

Countries with data counts the matches out of the 177 on the map. Highest and Lowest name the extremes, and Total and Mean are computed over matched countries only. Hover any country for its name and value, or "no data".

Exporting

Download SVG gives a vector file with one path per country and editable legend text. Download PNG renders at one, two or three times the preview width. Copy SVG puts the markup on the clipboard.

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