Everybody loves maps. Some people also love making their own maps. An easy, accessible way to do that (for those who don’t have GIS software) is to find a blank map on Google and color it using a simple program like Paint or Gimp. This produces a choropleth map, meaning that given areas are colored according to various data. This can be used for anything from showing where you’ve traveled, to illustrate detailed research findings.

Unfortunately, many of the blank maps online are not made specifically for flood coloring. The top Google hits often having antialiased or thick edges that make them hard to color in, color schemes that require you to greyscale and contrast them yourself, or vector formats that don’t go well with all photo editors. Or, in the case of the most-often used blank map from the Google hits, they simply don’t look that good.

Because I could never find a blank map that suited me, I decided to make some specifically for flood coloring. Here, you’ll find maps that are: