Shade each region
Colour intensity carries the value. The right choice for rates, shares and per-capita figures, which are already adjusted for how big or populous a region is.
Open the templateAll maps
Ohio County Map Maker
A blank Ohio county map to print, and a builder to fill it with your own data. Download the free outline of all 88 counties, or upload a spreadsheet and publish an interactive Ohio map you can embed anywhere.
Blank Ohio map, free to download
All 88 counties, as a clean outline. Print it, colour it in, or drop it into a document — no account and no attribution required.
Free for any use, including commercial and classroom. Generated from the same boundaries the builder uses.
Download SVGWhat a Ohio map shows
Ohio divides into 88 counties, and it is one of the better-behaved states to map. The counties are compact and fairly even in size, so no single shape swallows the picture, and 88 is few enough that a reader can take in the whole state at a glance. What the geography shows is a state with several centres rather than one. Franklin County holds Columbus in the middle, Cuyahoga holds Cleveland in the north-east and Hamilton holds Cincinnati in the south-west — the three Cs that most Ohio statistics end up being about — while the Appalachian counties along the Ohio River in the south-east consistently sit at the other end of almost every measure the state publishes. That contrast is the argument a county map of Ohio is usually making, and it is invisible in any statewide average.
Three ways to draw Ohio
Shade the regions when your number is a rate, size a marker when it is a count. Getting this backwards is the most common way a data map misleads.
A sized marker per region
One symbol on each region, scaled by value. Use it for counts and totals, where shading the land area would just redraw the population map.
Open the templateProportional circles
Circles sized by value, sitting over the outline. Reads well when a few regions dominate and small ones would otherwise disappear into a shade.
Open the templateWhen to map Ohio
Your data is reported by Ohio county
Ohio Department of Health indicators, ODJFS labour and caseload figures, Department of Education report cards and Secretary of State election returns are all published by county.
You are showing a rate or a share
Unemployment rate, overdose deaths per 100,000, graduation rate, share of the vote. Rates are already adjusted for population, which is what shading a region needs.
You want to show the Appalachian divide
The gap between the metro counties and the 32 counties of Appalachian Ohio runs through health, income, broadband and school funding alike. On a county map it reads as one shape on the page instead of a footnote.
You need a blank map to print or fill in
Classroom exercises, campaign planning, colour-by-hand sessions. The free outline above prints cleanly at any size.
When not to map Ohio
You are mapping totals rather than rates
Shade by a raw count and Franklin, Cuyahoga and Hamilton win every time — they hold roughly a third of the state between them. Use symbols or bubbles sized by the count instead.
Your unit is a city or a school district
Ohio has more than 600 school districts and its municipalities annex across county lines. Mapping either onto 88 counties will misplace the thing you are describing.
You are comparing city neighbourhoods
Cuyahoga County is one shape whether Cleveland's east side and its western suburbs look alike or nothing alike. Below the county line, use ZIP codes or census tracts.
Only a few counties have data
A map with sixty grey shapes and twenty-eight coloured ones is a worse bar chart. If coverage is patchy, rank the counties you do have.
How to make a Ohio map
From a spreadsheet to a published map, step by step.
Download the blank map, or start from the template
The free outline above is a plain SVG of all 88 counties — print it, or drop it into a document. To build with data, open the PlotSet Ohio (counties) template, which comes with sample data already bound.
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 Ohio all begin 39.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Start from the Ohio template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.
Open the templateGetting your Ohio data to join
What the place column has to look like, and where to find data that already matches.
All 88 counties, spelled as the state spells them
Watch the ones that break a join: Wyandot has no final 'te', Tuscarawas, Ashtabula, Coshocton, Guernsey, Champaign and Licking all get typed from memory and mistyped. Matching on FIPS avoids every one of these.
Ohio FIPS codes start at 39
39001 is Adams, 39175 is Wyandot. Store the column as text so the leading digits survive, and note that the county part is odd-numbered rather than sequential.
Many Ohio county names exist in other states too
Adams, Union, Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Franklin, Clark and Warren all appear in a dozen states. If your table covers more than Ohio, join on FIPS or you will import somebody else's county.
Where to get Ohio county data
The Ohio Department of Health, the Department of Job and Family Services, the Department of Education and Workforce, the Secretary of State and ODNR all publish county tables, as does the Census Bureau's ACS.
Common mistakes on a Ohio map
Shading counts instead of rates
It produces a population map every time. Anything that grows simply because more people live there should be a sized symbol, not a shade.
Reading the three metro counties as the state
Franklin, Cuyahoga and Hamilton are loud on any map because that is where the people are. If your story is about rural Ohio, say which counties you mean and consider mapping them on their own.
Joining on names without checking spelling
Wyandot and Wyandotte are different counties in different states, and a silent mismatch leaves a blank shape rather than an error. 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.
Ohio map questions
Yes. The outline above is a free SVG of all 88 Ohio counties — right-click to save it, print it, or drop it into a worksheet or document. No account needed.
Put your own data on the Ohio map
Upload a spreadsheet and publish an interactive map in a couple of minutes — free, no credit card.