The Chart Maker

Blank US county map maker

This county map maker opens all 3,142 counties as one blank map. Click a county to fill it, or drag across a run of them to paint several in one stroke. Write the legend in your own words, then export the map as a PNG. State outlines stay drawn on top so the shape still reads.

Also known as: us counties map, blank county map, map with counties, county colouring map, county level map generator.

Counties in every state

What you are taking on before you start: the number of county shapes in each state.

StateCounties on the map
Alabama67 counties
Alaska29 counties
Arizona15 counties
Arkansas75 counties
California58 counties
Colorado64 counties
Connecticut8 counties
Delaware3 counties
District of Columbia1 county
Florida67 counties
Georgia159 counties
Hawaii5 counties
Idaho44 counties
Illinois102 counties
Indiana92 counties
Iowa99 counties
Kansas105 counties
Kentucky120 counties
Louisiana64 counties
Maine16 counties
Maryland24 counties
Massachusetts14 counties
Michigan83 counties
Minnesota87 counties
Mississippi82 counties
Missouri115 counties
Montana56 counties
Nebraska93 counties
Nevada17 counties
New Hampshire10 counties
New Jersey21 counties
New Mexico33 counties
New York62 counties
North Carolina100 counties
North Dakota53 counties
Ohio88 counties
Oklahoma77 counties
Oregon36 counties
Pennsylvania67 counties
Rhode Island5 counties
South Carolina46 counties
South Dakota66 counties
Tennessee95 counties
Texas254 counties
Utah29 counties
Vermont14 counties
Virginia133 counties
Washington39 counties
West Virginia55 counties
Wisconsin72 counties
Wyoming23 counties

3,142 counties and county equivalents in total, across the 51 states and federal districts listed above.

How to make a blank US county map

  1. Open the county map. Choose the USA map and switch counties on. The map redraws with every county as its own shape, with the state boundaries still visible over the top so you can find where you are.
  2. Narrow it down if you can. Picking a few states first makes the map far easier to work with and far easier to read afterwards. A single-state county map is usually the map people actually wanted.
  3. Click, or drag to paint. A click fills one county. Holding and dragging paints every county the pointer crosses, which is how a region gets coloured without two hundred separate clicks, and it works with a finger as well as a mouse.
  4. Export at full size. A county map carries a lot of small shapes, so export it large and crop the view to the part that matters. Publishing gives you a link with a preview image of the finished map.

What you can do

  • All 3,142 counties and county equivalents as separate shapes.
  • Drag to paint a run of counties in one stroke, on a mouse or a touchscreen.
  • Fill every county you have not touched with one colour, so a baseline category takes one action.
  • State boundaries drawn over the counties, so a national map is still readable.
  • Flat colours plus stripe, dot and checkerboard patterns for categories that must survive greyscale.
  • A legend you write yourself and place where the map leaves room.
  • Cut the map down to one state or a handful of them.
  • Rivers, lakes, cities and interstate overlays for context.
  • Crop the exported view so the counties fill the frame rather than the whole country.
  • A full-size PNG at the end, with no watermark, which matters more here than on any other map.

Make your own blank US county map

Election night, county by county

The county map is the one people recognise from results coverage. Two colours, one legend, and a margin category as a pattern if you want the close ones to read differently.

Where you have driven, worked or lived

County-level personal maps are far more precise than a states map: the counties you have driven through tell a story a coloured-in state cannot.

Local data you found

Broadband, unemployment, average rainfall, a health measure, a census figure. Choose three or four bands, colour them light to dark, and label the bands in the legend.

Ancestry and family history

Where a family name shows up, where the branches settled, where a migration went. County lines are the level old records were kept at, which makes them the right level for the map.

Coverage and dispatch areas

Service areas, delivery zones and franchise territory are drawn at county level far more often than at state level, and a county map with a written legend is a document rather than a picture.

Common questions

How many counties are on the map?

3,142, which is every county and county equivalent in the United States, including the parishes of Louisiana and the boroughs and census areas of Alaska. The per-state counts are in the table above.

Can I make a county map of one state?

Yes, and it is the better map most of the time. Choose the state and the view crops to it, so Texas becomes a readable map of 254 counties instead of a smudge on a national one.

Can I put a picture inside a county?

No. Counties take colours and patterns only, because at this many shapes an image per region is unreadable and unworkable. If you want pictures on a US map, use the states map, which supports them.

Are county names printed on the map?

Not by default. County codes are numeric, so printing them on a national map would bury it in numbers. Name the categories in the legend instead, and crop tighter when a viewer needs to identify a specific county.

Does it include Washington DC and independent cities?

Yes. The set follows the county-equivalent list, so DC, the independent cities of Virginia and the Alaskan census areas are all present as their own shapes.

I only want county lines, not county colours.

Then use the states map and switch the county-lines overlay on. You get the county detail drawn over the top while the states stay the shapes you click, which is the right map when the data is state-level but the picture needs texture.

Is a national county map slow to work with?

It carries a few thousand shapes, so it is heavier than any other map here. Narrowing it to the states you actually need makes it quick again, and it makes the finished map far easier to read as well.

Is it free?

Yes, and no account is needed. The map lives in this browser while you work on it, and the PNG export never asks you to sign in.

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