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North Carolina County Map Maker

A blank North Carolina county map to print, and a builder to fill it with your own data. Download the free outline of all 100 counties, or upload a spreadsheet and publish an interactive North Carolina map you can embed anywhere.

Fond de carte North Carolina vierge, à télécharger gratuitement

Les 100 counties, en tracé net. Imprimez-le, coloriez-le ou insérez-le dans un document — sans compte et sans attribution.

Fond de carte vierge de North Carolina montrant l'ensemble de ses counties

Libre pour tout usage, y compris commercial et scolaire. Généré à partir des mêmes contours que l'éditeur.

Télécharger le SVG

Ce que montre une carte North Carolina

North Carolina divides into 100 counties, and the state is unusually well suited to a county map because its geography is genuinely banded. The map runs west to east through three regions that behave differently on almost every measure: the mountain counties around Asheville and the Blue Ridge, the Piedmont crescent that carries Charlotte, the Triad and the Research Triangle, and the coastal plain and Outer Banks. Population sits overwhelmingly in the middle band — Mecklenburg and Wake together hold about a fifth of the state — while the eastern and western counties are smaller, older and more rural. Because those three regions are contiguous rather than scattered, a shaded county map of North Carolina tends to show clean bands rather than noise, which makes it one of the more persuasive state maps you can build.

Trois façons de dessiner North Carolina

Colorez les régions pour un taux, dimensionnez un marqueur pour un effectif. Inverser les deux est la façon la plus courante de tromper le lecteur.

Choroplèthe

Colorer chaque région

L'intensité de la couleur porte la valeur. Le bon choix pour les taux, les parts et les données par habitant, déjà ajustés à la taille ou à la population.

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Symboles

Un marqueur dimensionné par région

Un symbole par région, mis à l'échelle selon la valeur. À utiliser pour les effectifs et les totaux, là où colorer la surface ne ferait que redessiner la carte de la population.

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Bulles

Cercles proportionnels

Des cercles dimensionnés par la valeur, posés sur le tracé. Efficace quand quelques régions dominent et que les petites disparaîtraient dans un aplat.

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Quand cartographier North Carolina

  • Your data is reported by North Carolina county

    NC DHHS health indicators, Department of Commerce labour figures, DPI school data and State Board of Elections returns are all published by county.

  • You are showing a rate or a share

    Unemployment rate, uninsured share, turnout, median household income. Rates are already adjusted for population, which is what shading a region needs.

  • You want to show the mountains–Piedmont–coast pattern

    North Carolina's regions are geographic bands, so they show up on a county map as bands. This is the state where the picture usually does the arguing for you.

  • You need a blank map to print or fill in

    Classroom exercises, territory planning, colour-by-hand sessions. The free outline above prints cleanly at any size.

Quand éviter la carte North Carolina

  • You are mapping totals rather than rates

    Shade by a raw count and Mecklenburg and Wake win every time — two urban counties holding a fifth of the state in two modest shapes. Use symbols or bubbles sized by the count instead.

  • Your unit is a city or a metro

    The Charlotte metro reaches into South Carolina and the Triangle spans several counties. Forcing either onto county lines misplaces the thing you are describing.

  • You are comparing the Triangle's towns

    Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill sit in three different counties that also contain a great deal of countryside. Below that level, use ZIP codes or census tracts.

  • Only a few counties have data

    Surveys sized for the state rarely support 100 county estimates. If seventy counties would be grey, rank the ones you have instead of mapping them.

Comment créer une carte North Carolina

Du tableur à la carte publiée, étape par étape.

01

Download the blank map, or start from the template

The free outline above is a plain SVG of all 100 counties — print it, or drop it into a document. To build with data, open the PlotSet North Carolina (counties) template, which comes with sample data already bound.

02

Prepare a county column and a value column

One row per county: the county name or its five-digit FIPS code in the first column, your number in the second. FIPS codes for North Carolina all begin 37.

03

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the map can be refreshed when the source updates.

04

Pick the style that fits the measure

Shade the counties for a rate, or switch to symbols or bubbles for a count. Same geography, same data, different encoding.

05

Choose a colour scale on purpose

Sequential for a low-to-high measure, diverging only when a real midpoint exists — the state average, zero change, a 50 per cent line. Four to six steps read more precisely than a smooth gradient.

06

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive map with a tooltip on every county, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a report or a deck.

Partez du modèle North Carolina avec ses données d'exemple, puis remplacez-les par les vôtres.

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Faire correspondre vos données North Carolina

À quoi doit ressembler la colonne des lieux, et où trouver des données déjà compatibles.

All 100 counties, spelled as the state spells them

The coastal names are where joins break: Pasquotank, Perquimans, Currituck, Chowan, Tyrrell and Bertie. Buncombe, Watauga, Transylvania and Yadkin catch people out too. Matching on FIPS avoids every one of these.

North Carolina FIPS codes start at 37

37001 is Alamance, 37199 is Yancey. Store the column as text so the leading digits survive, and note that the county part is odd-numbered rather than sequential.

Several county names are shared with Virginia

Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Halifax, Northampton and Warren all exist on both sides of the border. In any multi-state table, join on FIPS or you will pull Virginia's numbers onto a North Carolina map.

Where to get North Carolina county data

NC DHHS, the Department of Commerce's LAUS tables, the Department of Public Instruction, the State Board of Elections and the Office of State Budget and Management all publish county figures, as does the Census Bureau's ACS.

Erreurs fréquentes sur une carte North Carolina

Shading counts instead of rates

It produces a population map every time — Mecklenburg and Wake light up and the other 98 counties fade. Anything that grows simply because more people live there should be a sized symbol, not a shade.

Treating the coastal counties as one thing

The Outer Banks counties are small in population and unusual in age and seasonality. A rate calculated on a few thousand residents swings hard, so consider suppressing or annotating the smallest ones.

Joining on names across state borders

A national table joined on county name alone will quietly hand Mecklenburg County, Virginia's figure to Charlotte. Join on FIPS where you can.

Using a rainbow colour scale

A sequence of hues has no natural order, so readers cannot tell high from low without checking the legend on every county. Use one hue, light to dark — it also preserves the west-to-east banding that makes this map worth drawing.

Questions sur la carte North Carolina

Yes. The outline above is a free SVG of all 100 North Carolina counties — right-click to save it, print it, or drop it into a worksheet or document. No account needed.

Placez vos données sur la carte North Carolina

Importez un tableur et publiez une carte interactive en quelques minutes — gratuit, sans carte bancaire.