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
Wisconsin County Map Maker
A blank Wisconsin county map to print, and a builder to fill it with your own data. Download the free outline of all 72 counties, or upload a spreadsheet and publish an interactive Wisconsin map you can embed anywhere.
Blank Wisconsin map, free to download
All 72 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 Wisconsin map shows
Wisconsin divides into 72 counties, and almost every figure the state publishes — unemployment, dairy production, turnout, school enrolment, health outcomes — is released at that level. It is a good geography to map: the counties are similar enough in size that no single one swallows the picture, and the state's real internal divisions show up clearly at county resolution. The Milwaukee and Madison metros, the Fox Valley corridor, the dairy counties of the west and the sparse forested north each read as their own region on a county map, and none of them is visible in a single statewide number.
Three ways to draw Wisconsin
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 Wisconsin
Your data is reported by Wisconsin county
DHS health indicators, DWD labour figures, DPI school data, DATCP agricultural statistics and Wisconsin Elections Commission returns are all published by county.
You are showing a rate or a share
Unemployment rate, vaccination share, share of votes, median household income. Rates are already adjusted for population, which is what shading a region needs.
You want to show a north–south or urban–rural split
Wisconsin's clearest patterns are geographic. A county map makes the divide between the metro southeast and the northern counties an argument the reader can see rather than a claim they have to accept.
You need a blank map to print or fill in
Classroom exercises, planning workshops, colour-by-hand sessions. The free outline above prints cleanly at any size.
When not to map Wisconsin
You are mapping totals rather than rates
Shade by a raw count and Milwaukee County wins every time — it holds roughly a sixth of the state's population in one of its smaller shapes. Use symbols or bubbles sized by the count instead.
Your unit is a city or a school district
Wisconsin's municipalities and school districts cross county lines freely. Mapping them onto counties will misplace the thing you are describing.
Only a few counties have data
A map with sixty grey shapes and twelve coloured ones is a worse bar chart. If coverage is patchy, rank the counties you do have.
The comparison is with other states
If the point is how Wisconsin sits against its neighbours, use the US states map or the full US county map so the reader can see across the border.
How to make a Wisconsin 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 72 counties — print it, or drop it into a document. To build with data, open the PlotSet Wisconsin (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 Wisconsin all begin 55.
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 Wisconsin template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.
Open the templateGetting your Wisconsin data to join
What the place column has to look like, and where to find data that already matches.
All 72 counties, spelled as the state spells them
Watch the ones that trip up a join: Fond du Lac, Eau Claire, La Crosse, St. Croix, Green and Green Lake, Marinette and Menominee. Matching on FIPS avoids every one of these.
Wisconsin FIPS codes start at 55
55001 is Adams, 55141 is Wood. Store the column as text so the codes keep their shape, and remember the county part is odd-numbered, not sequential.
Milwaukee County is not Milwaukee
The city sits inside the county along with eighteen other municipalities. If your figure is city-level, it does not belong on a county map.
Where to get Wisconsin county data
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Public Instruction and the Wisconsin Elections Commission all publish county tables, as does the Census Bureau's ACS.
Common mistakes on a Wisconsin 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.
Joining on names without checking spelling
Fond du Lac and Fond Du Lac are different strings, and a silent mismatch leaves a blank county rather than an error. Join on FIPS where you can.
Ignoring the population imbalance
Milwaukee and Dane counties hold a quarter of the state between them in two small shapes, while the largest counties by area are in the sparsely populated north. Note it in the caption.
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.
Wisconsin map questions
Yes. The outline above is a free SVG of all 72 Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin map
Upload a spreadsheet and publish an interactive map in a couple of minutes — free, no credit card.